National Patient Safety Agency

Baroness Elles: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What progress has been made on the collection of data by the National Patient Safety Agency.

Lord Warner: My Lords, the vast majority of NHS patients receive safe and effective care but, in any healthcare system, mistakes can happen. To enable the NHS to learn from mistakes, the Government established the National Patient Safety Agency, which set up a reporting and learning system to which all NHS organisations in England and Wales are now reporting patient safety incidents. Drawing on this information, the NPSA has produced one report and will shortly produce a second focusing on mental health. The agency will be moving to quarterly reports.

Baroness Elles: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. How many patient incidents and near misses were reported in 2005? The Comptroller and Auditor General's report of October 2005 referred to about 30 different outlets by which trusts could report to the patient safety organisation. Because of the consequential overlap, many doubt the value of reporting to the agency. Has the NPSA made any improvements in reporting back, at regular intervals, on safety measures that should be undertaken on a national level, with reports to be sent to local trusts?

Lord Warner: My Lords, the answer to the first question is that the NPSA had just over 85,000 incidents reported in 2005. From November 2003 to March 2005, nearly 70 per cent of reported incidents caused no harm to patients. On the number of sources of information, I understand that the majority of NHS staff will need to report a patient safety incident only once: to their local risk management system, which will notify the agency.

Baroness Neuberger: My Lords, following questions asked by the Public Accounts Committee in January, what data on adverse events are being collected from the independent sector before the NHS commissions interventions and operations from it? When will the NPSA cover all healthcare settings, including nursing homes, so that the data are not purely NHS premises-related but about all the UK's patients, especially the older patients, the importance of which, I think, today's news makes abundantly clear?

Lord Warner: My Lords, the registration of the independent sector is done through the Healthcare Commission, which receives information from the sector on that. We are working with the independent sector to develop the reporting of these incidents in independent sector treatment centres.

Earl Howe: My Lords, does the Minister agree that it is only by putting the data into the public domain regularly that a culture of safety will be embedded in the NHS, which is something that we all want to see? Are the Government willing to envisage greater transparency in the whole area?

Lord Warner: My Lords, we are making sure that there is good feedback to the NHS. A key principle of the reporting system is to ensure that there is confidentiality in relation to what comes up to the national level so that there is anonymity and so that, at the local level, people's names are protected but the organisation itself can learn from mistakes.

Lord Marsh: My Lords, let us take the specific case of cross-infection and its effect on patients. To what extent do the Government think that contracting out cleaning services should be continued without some sort of control?

Lord Warner: My Lords, this is slightly wide of the Question, but I can tell the noble Lord that there is good evidence, as I know from my previous job, that there is not much difference between the cross-infection rates in hospitals that have contracted out their cleaning services and those that have such services in-house.

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: My Lords, it is vital that the information coming from the National Patient Safety Agency is made available to patient organisations, so will my noble friend confirm that it is possible for patients to make reports to the agency with anonymity?

Lord Warner: My Lords, it is possible to report incidents to the agency, but probably the best source is to report them to the local trust, so that they can be fed into its risk management system and onwards to the agency. We are concerned that the NPSA should continue to put information into the public arena so that everybody knows where they stand on such incidents.

Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, in the light of the reorganisations that are going on in the National Health Service, will the noble Lord assure us that the NPSA will continue at least for the life of this Parliament?

Lord Warner: My Lords, we have actually given the NPSA more functions, as I recall, and we have no plans to do other than continue to support its important work.

Baroness Elles: My Lords, will the Minister tell the House whether the NPSA now makes regular reports back to local trusts, which it had failed to do until last year?

Lord Warner: My Lords, I understand that there is good feedback to the NHS. There is a website that is accessible to NHS trusts, so that they can see, on an anonymised basis, what is going on in other trusts as well.

Disability: Communication Aids

Baroness Wilkins: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Whether they will commission research into how many disabled people who are without speech have an unmet need for a communication aid.

Lord Warner: My Lords, my department has commissioned research on communication therapy and aids. Responsibility for assessing people's individual communication aids needs rests with local health and social care agencies. They are in the best position to determine local service priorities, using the increasing resources that the Government have made available. We will continue with stakeholders to consider this area as we take forward the implementation of the White Paper, Our health, our care, our say.

Baroness Wilkins: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. Does he agree that being deprived of speech is probably the most disabling condition and that our ignorance of the extent of the need for communication aids makes it unlikely that sufficient provision will be made at local level amid all the other competing needs? The Minister will be aware that the only ring-fenced funding for the aids—the communication aids project—ends this week. What assurance can he give the House that reliable arrangements will be put in place to ensure statutory funding for this extremely vulnerable group of children and adults, so that they do not remain largely dependent on charitable sources to have their needs met?

Lord Warner: My Lords, on the general point, we believe that, despite the difficulties, it is right that people at the local level should assess the needs required and use the resources available to them to meet the priorities that are established. The communication aids project was always intended to be a time-limited project that would cease on 31 March. Important lessons have been learnt by those in other parts of the country from that project.

Baroness Darcy de Knayth: My Lords, does the Minister agree that communication is a fundamental human right? It is essential in education and employment and for social inclusion. I know that the Government are to undertake research but, if the project is to cease, can the Minister ensure that such a basic human right will be met?

Lord Warner: My Lords, I certainly agree that this is an important issue in enabling people to participate fully in our society. That is why it is important that local health and social care agencies address the issues raised by this set of needs and, in the light of local priorities, respond to them.

Lord Addington: My Lords, does the Minister accept that the idea of reasonableness is something to which the Government agreed in the Disability Discrimination Act and in the follow-up legislation last year? How could it be reasonable to deny someone the support that allows them to talk?

Lord Warner: My Lords, I am not sure in how many more ways I can say this: we accept that it is an important issue. It is important that people have assistance with communication where they need it, so that they can participate in society. I repeat the point that I was making: it is down to people at the local level to assess those needs and to meet them when they need to do so. In relation to children, if there are special educational needs and an assessment is made, there is then an obligation on a local authority to respond to that assessment appropriately.

Lord Ashley of Stoke: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that people without speech and communication, especially children, suffer horrendous difficulties, compounded by loneliness? The Government gave £21 million in the past five years to help such people. That was regarded as a vital supplement. What is the difference between the past five years and the next five years? Why has the supplement now become not so vital?

Lord Warner: My Lords, it was always intended that the programme would be time-limited. We now know from the experience of that programme that a lot of work has been done with local authorities to enable them to learn lessons from it. There is a good stock of CAP case studies showing how agencies have worked together in support of children with significant communication difficulties. All local authorities can learn from that experience.

Earl Howe: My Lords, the Minister has made it clear that, so far as the Government are concerned, ensuring that those in need receive the help that they require is down to decision-making at a local level. Am I right in thinking that there are no nationally agreed criteria or systems for providing communication aids and that even now there is considerable variation in provision between different sectors, which results in major problems? Will the end of the communication aids project not mean a postcode lottery appearing in this area?

Lord Warner: My Lords, guidance has been given in The National Service Framework for Long-term Conditions. The function on communication is central to themes in our document Improving the life chances of disabled people. We take the issue very seriously. We have allocated increasingly large resources to local authorities for social services and to the NHS in relation to health needs. We expect people to use the national service frameworks and guidance to meet the needs in their local communities.

Lord Morris of Manchester: My Lords, can the Minister tell the House what assessments the Government have made of the number of people on incapacity benefit who could undertake work if they were provided with adequate communication equipment?

Lord Warner: My Lords, I do not have that information immediately to hand, but I shall look into the matter and write to my noble friend.

Lord Laming: My Lords, does the Minister agree that this would be a good topic on which to invite the health inspectorate and the social care inspectorate to do a joint inspection to see how well the systems are working at local level? As the noble Lord indicated, it is a matter for local services, and it would be helpful if the inspectorate could assess how well they were working.

Lord Warner: My Lords, I am certainly willing to look into the issue with my colleagues. I remind the noble Lord that in our White Paper, Our health, our care, our say, the new director of adult social services and the directors of public health were identified as key in advising on how local authorities and PCTs would promote the health and well-being of their local communities. This is one of the issues that we would expect them to pay attention to.

Lord Avebury: My Lords, is the Minister aware that, according to research conducted by the Chief Inspector of Prisons, a significant proportion of young people coming into the criminal justice system has significant communication difficulties but that the sample work conducted in a particular institution has not been rolled out throughout the prison system? Does he think that it is important to measure the communication difficulties of people in the criminal justice system and to do something about it?

Lord Warner: My Lords, I am aware of the general problem, and I will certainly draw the points that the noble Lord has made to my colleagues' attention.

Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I accept that the Minister is absolutely right to say that this is a problem with a local solution, but the Government have none the less taken on board the need for numbers of doctors, nurses and therapists—in this case, speech therapists. What assessment have the Government made of the need for speech therapists, and are they up to strength?

Lord Warner: My Lords, I am delighted to tell the House that between December 1997 and 2004, the number of speech and language therapists employed in the NHS increased by 1,684, or 35 per cent.

Lord Ramsbotham: My Lords, I draw the Minister's attention to the fact that for two years, until last July, a trial pilot of speech and language therapists, funded by the Helen Hamlyn Trust, was run in two young offender establishments with the plea that the Government should pick up that bill because of the enormous good work that they would do. Since then, there has been nothing but silence because neither the Home Office nor the National Health Service has been able to agree who might pay for the vital people to do that vital work.

Lord Warner: My Lords, I would be delighted to look into the communications issues and get someone to reply to the noble Lord.

Criminal Justice: Scientific Investigations

Lord Hunt of Chesterton: My Lords, I beg to leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare an interest as a recent technical witness.
	The Question was as follows:
	To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure fairness and cost-effectiveness in scientific investigations in criminal trials in light of the cost and outcome of recent trials.

Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, the Government are committed to fairness and cost-effectiveness in cases involving forensic science and expert witnesses. Lessons learnt from recent trials, particularly those involving infant deaths, have resulted in a number of initiatives, including the publication of guidance to experts, which I announced to the House on 14 February this year. That guidance sets standards for the use of experts in criminal trials across the justice system.

Lord Hunt of Chesterton: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. Are Her Majesty's Government aware of the bias in current procedures, as costly scientific investigations by the prosecution are not open to inspection and comment by the defence experts at their planning stage? Because the results are disclosed only on completion of experiments, the defence, with limited public funds, needs to do its own studies and experiments. Therefore, will the Government encourage trial judges to follow the practice of some civil trials and insist on more openness in scientific investigations in order to reduce costs and ensure greater fairness to both parties?

Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, I do not agree with my noble friend about bias in the system. At the end of the day, the issue is always going to be whether the prosecution has proved a case beyond reasonable doubt. I am aware of the case in which my noble friend appeared. I know that in that high-profile case some of the investigations that the police carried out resulted in invitations to the defence to participate and observe those experiments. Others took place at an earlier stage while the original investigation was taking place. Obviously, I agree with my noble friend that it is important that when the case comes to trial there is as much agreement between the experts as possible; and openness between the experts is one of the ways to achieve that.

Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, in the new protocol in complex criminal cases, the exchange of expert scientific reports is required at a preliminary case management hearing. Experts must meet and identify points in agreement and points in dispute. Does the noble and learned Lord not think it desirable, where expert evidence is in dispute, to require the judge to test at a preliminary case management hearing the methodology behind the conclusions of both sides—its theoretical and experimental basis; whether it is subject to peer review; its known error rate; and the degree of acceptance of a particular theory in the scientific community? Would that not give experts on both sides time for reflection, for further investigation with all the material available and for review? That would be far better than having it all thrashed out at trial in front of the jury.

Lord Goldsmith: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord thus far. It will be highly desirable in the case management hearings that will increasingly take place for the trial judge to play an active role in trying to identify the issues. That goes for non-scientific and scientific issues. I agree with him that one way of doing that will be for the judge on the scientific side to invite defence and prosecution to answer the sort of questions that he has identified. At the end of the day, it will have to be for the jury and not the judge to decide whether the scientific evidence is valid.

Earl Ferrers: My Lords, does the noble Baroness the Leader of the House agree that supplementary questions ought not to be read?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, I totally agree. A number of individuals in the House this afternoon have been guilty of that.

Armed Forces: Joint Strike Fighter

Lord Astor of Hever: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Whether, in the light of the United States Government's refusal to guarantee full access and participation for the United Kingdom in the Joint Strike Fighter programme, they will now constitute a sufficiently funded integrated project team to reopen and take forward studies on a marine variant of the Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft.

Lord Drayson: My Lords, before answering, I regret to inform the House that this morning we received notice of a road traffic accident in southern Afghanistan resulting in the fatality of one UK soldier and the minor injury of one other UK soldier. It is not thought that enemy action was involved. It would not be appropriate to comment further until the next of kin have been informed. Our thoughts are with the families.
	Following my visit to Washington earlier this month to discuss the JSF programme, I remain optimistic that we will achieve the appropriate operational sovereignty that we require. I assure the House that the necessary actions have been and will continue to be undertaken to ensure that we have the necessary contingency plans for the JSF project. I am sure that the House will understand that I cannot go into the detail of what our contingency plans are.

Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, we on these Benches send our condolences to the family of the soldier killed.
	Clearly, the Government must have a well defined and wholly workable plan B even if the precise details are withheld for the time being. Can the Minister deny reports that the MoD is considering the Rafale, especially given the problems that the French are experiencing with it? Can he give a guarantee that there is no intention to share JSF technology with European countries? The US are concerned that this could result in some technology leakage to the Chinese.

Lord Drayson: My Lords, with regard to the second part of the noble Lord's question, I assure the House that we have all necessary safeguards in place to make sure that there is no leakage of information transferred to us as part of the JSF or any other programme. As regards the first part of his question, I am not prepared to go into the details of our contingency plans.

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, as the former Minister who originally signed the JSF agreement which provided for the transfer of technology, can I ask the Minister to confirm that the current position arises not from a lack of commitment on the part of the United States over transfer of technology but rather from the complicated process which is now engaged upon and which causes considerable difficulty for industry and the Government? Can he assure us that this is being dealt with as a matter of urgency to restore confidence in a project which should be enormously worth while to the United Kingdom?

Lord Drayson: My Lords, I agree with my noble friend that this matter is of the highest importance to the relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom. We have had three meetings in the past 10 days with the Administration on this subject. It is not a problem related to a lack of will on either part. My noble friend is absolutely right; it is a complex process. None the less, the pace at which the threats change these days requires us to have a more fluid process. That is what we aim to achieve.

Lord Garden: My Lords, from these Benches we add our condolences to the family of the soldier who was, so sadly, killed. I also add our welcome to the Minister's tough negotiating position on this important issue. Although I understand that he cannot discuss the detail of the contingency plans, can he assure us that the Government will look for cost-effectiveness, risk reduction and delivery date? That means that all practical options need to be looked at, which must include an upgrade to the Harrier, the possibility of a Rafale M or a new variant to the Eurofighter.

Lord Drayson: My Lords, I am happy to assure the House that all options have been looked at throughout the JSF programme and that, as we take forward our contingency plans, we continue to take into account value for money, cost-effectiveness and in-service date.

Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, is it not of the essence of this project that compatible technology must be shared with us?

Lord Drayson: Yes, my Lords, I absolutely agree. It is very important that we have the capability to fight with this aircraft, to maintain it and to upgrade it through its life. It will be a central plank of our strategic defence posture as part of carrier strike. It is essential that we have this technology transfer. We will not be able to buy the aircraft if we do not have it.

Lord Elton: My Lords, can the Minister assure the House that at present we have sufficient and appropriate aircraft to defend our fleets wherever they are at sea? For how long will that be the case if this agreement is not reached?

Lord Drayson: My Lords, I can assure the House that we have the necessary protection for our fleet today and that we will ensure that it has the protection that it needs in future.

Lord Lyell: My Lords, can the Minister confirm what I think I heard him say to the noble Lord, Lord Garden, referring to the Harrier? I understand that the GR 7/9 variety is being developed for marine and other such mixed operations. Can the Minister confirm that that is still in the framework and is not excluded from the contingency plans that he mentioned?

Lord Drayson: My Lords, I am sure that the House will understand that it is not in the British interest for us to go into detail about the specifics of our contingency plans. The Joint Strike Fighter programme is our clear preferred option—our plan A—but I am happy to assure the House that the contingency plans that are needed to maintain our plan B are in place.

Business

Baroness Amos: My Lords, with the leave of the House, following the Third Reading of the Compensation Bill, my noble friend Lord Triesman will repeat a Statement being made in another place on the European Council. Afterwards, my noble friend Lady Andrews will repeat a Statement entitled, "Council Tax 2006–07". Finally, my noble friend Lord Bach will then repeat a Statement concerning the Rural Payments Agency.

Childcare Bill

Baroness Amos: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Adonis on the Order Paper.
	Moved, That it be an instruction to the Grand Committee to which the Childcare Bill has been committed that they consider the Bill in the following order:
	Clauses 1 to 48, Schedule 1, Clauses 49 to 103, Schedules 2 and 3, Clauses 104 to 111.—(Baroness Amos.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Work and Families Bill

Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Sainsbury on the Order Paper.
	Moved, That the amendments for the Report stage be marshalled and considered in the following order:
	Clauses 1 to 11, Schedule 1, Clauses 12 to 15, Schedule 2, Clauses 16 to 20.—(Lord McKenzie of Luton.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

Baroness Amos: My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales to acquaint the House that they, having been informed of the purport of the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill, have consented to place their Interests, so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.

Bill read a third time.
	Clause 2 [General Purpose]:

Lord Dixon-Smith: moved Amendment No. 1:
	Page 2, line 7, after "managed" insert ", having regard to the need to contain global warming,"

Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, the Prime Minister himself said that the problem of global warming is probably the most important subject that any Government face. Indeed, it is probably even more significant than international terrorism. I make no apologies for tabling a redesigned amendment to try to persuade the Government that it is worth mentioning the subject in the Bill.
	I have said before in this House that the news on global warming is consistently bad. I paid some tribute to the Government over the weekend because they made an announcement in the press about micro-generation. That is one of the first optimistic signs I have seen in this country for a very long time, although one has an instinctive reservation. We await the details when the Government make a proper announcement to Parliament so that we can see what that one is all about.
	That announcement was, in effect, counter-balanced by research carried out by the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, working with a colleague at the University of Arizona, which was announced at the end of the week and reported in the Times on Friday. It is remarkable that the Americans, who are supposed to be a very negative force on the subject of global warming, host a great deal of extremely helpful and useful research into the matter. This research was predicated on the possibility that existing models that take account of the effect of global warming on the melting of Arctic and Antarctic ice are inadequate and that sea levels may rise at a rate vastly greater than anything suggested at present. Of course, this is yet more research in a very wide field, and its findings may not be realised. If it were to happen, however, the work of Natural England would be dramatically affected, because the research was postulating the possibility in the coming century of a sea rise of 20 feet rather than perhaps a foot or two.
	It is worth noting that a study was done by, I believe, the Environment Agency on the impact of a tidal surge on top of a major spring tide in 2030. It is one thing if that takes into account the expected sea rise of a foot or two, but it is entirely another if it has to take into account a sea rise of several feet. More importantly, a number of other policies will be dramatically affected if—I stress the "if"—that research is at all valid, because the whole management of our coastlines will be dramatically affected. If such a sea rise does not dramatically affect the way in which Natural England works in those areas, I am not standing here addressing this House this afternoon. But I am addressing the House this afternoon because the effect will be dramatic.
	When I tabled my amendment on Report, the Minister said:
	"As a key element of the broader sustainable development agenda, climate change would be an important part in the context in which Natural England operates. There is no doubt that relevant action to mitigate climate change could fall within Natural England's general purpose"—[Official Report, 15/3/06; col. 1273.]
	Instead of making the containment of global warming a specific function of Natural England, the amendment would make it part of its general functions. It would provide the context in which the functions mentioned in the Bill would have to be carried out. In my view, the amendment is consistent with the words of the Minister on Report. He will not be surprised therefore if I suggest that he could accept it. I beg to move.

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, I have added my name to the noble Lord's amendment. For the reasons he has stated, climate change is important. Natural England will be in the forefront, together with the Environment Agency, of facing what that means. It will have to face adaptation and mitigation for land management and best advice on biodiversity and wildlife and the whole swathe of issues with which it will be subsequently tasked under the Bill.
	Therefore, reference to climate change is essential. I was disappointed on Report when the Minister indicated that he was not minded to include it in the Bill. When the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, put down his amendment, I held out some hope that, if the Government did not like the exact wording, they might choose to amend it in such a way as to make them happy with it. I believe that we will have to task particular agencies and bodies to think about climate change at the forefront of what they do. After all, it is the most important issue of our time. This Bill is the place to start that. We support the noble Lord's amendment.

Baroness Byford: My Lords, I, too, support my noble friend's amendment. I was as disappointed as my noble friend when on Report the Minister referred to the key element of sustainable development. In fact, I would refer to the previous sentence of the Minister's speech. The Minister said that climate change has a,
	"wide-ranging agenda and one in which, frankly, Natural England would not be the lead player".—[Official Report, 15/3/06; col. 1273.]
	So who is the lead player? Many departments are covered. With Natural England established, clearly Defra should be not just a key player, but the leading player. If it is not, perhaps the noble Lord will tell us who is. What discussions or arrangements have been made with other government departments? We do not want climate change to be manhandled between one department and another when, clearly, Natural England, with its new responsibilities, will be at the forefront of this.
	I obviously support my noble friend Lord Dixon-Smith. He referred to the management of coastline. Even now, Southwold, in East Anglia, which I know quite well, is spending millions of pounds on improving its coastal defence plan. That is the situation now. With estimates of additional hazards of climate change, surely the Government cannot take—I wanted to say "lackadaisical", but that is not quite the right word—such a negative attitude to the very important crisis that is facing us and will continue to face us.

Lord Chorley: My Lords, for once I find myself not in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, partly because I do not really understand his amendment, which reads,
	"having regard to the need to contain global warming",
	in the context of the "General purpose" of the Bill.
	I will give the noble Lord an example. Last year, there was a major wind farm inquiry near Tebay, between the Yorkshire Dales National Park and the English Lake District National Park. The Countryside Agency put in evidence, extremely strongly and extremely effectively, that on landscape grounds there was no case for this wind farm. That was a good, renewable project. I am glad to say that the Minister accepted evidence from others, in particular the Countryside Agency, and the wind farm was rejected. There will be wind farms up and down the country where the landscape question will be extremely important. There will be other questions. A moment ago, the noble Baroness mentioned Southwold and just down the coast there is Sizewell. I am fully behind the noble Lord on global warming; it is the most serious issue the world has to face in the next hundred years; and I believe nuclear power will be one of the main ways of dealing with it. But the siting of nuclear power stations will be a problem and Natural England has to keep its hands free so that it can participate in the wider national debate. For that reason, much though I respect the philosophy of the noble Lord regarding global warming, I cannot support his amendment.

Lord Bach: My Lords, the noble Lord's amendment would make it clear that in taking action to conserve, enhance or manage the natural environment, Natural England has regard to the need to contain global warming. I appreciate the noble Lord's desire to find a form of words on this important, even crucial, topic that we could accept. However, I have to disappoint him.
	As I said at Report, the Government expect Natural England, in common with all other public bodies, to play an active role in combating the effects of global warming, which is a huge issue for our time. Given the serious effects that global warming will have on the natural environment of England, I am absolutely confident that Natural England will have regard to this need, so far as it is able, in the exercise of its functions—the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Chorley—for conserving, enhancing and managing the natural environment. So why can we not accept the amendment?
	It comes back to the role of Clause 2(1), where this amendment is now—for the first time, I believe—laid, in defining Natural England's purpose. Clause 2(1) is the general purpose—the core purpose—of Natural England. Far from being a preamble to paragraphs (a) to (e) of Clause (2)(2), it is the touchstone against which all Natural England's actions must be judged. The paragraphs are merely examples of things that are contained within the general purpose.
	Clause 2(1) also plays a crucial role in communicating Natural England's job to a wide range of its customers and other interested parties. It will certainly be the most quoted clause of the Bill. It will probably appear inside the front cover of every Natural England publication and in exhibitions, videos and university text books, among other places. I understand that that is precisely why the noble Lord wants to get a reference to global warming here. But there are a very large number of things which Natural England must or may have regard to. While the need to contain global warming would be high up anybody's list, we cannot accept that it should be the sole factor that is elevated to a position at the heart of Natural England's core purpose. If this amendment was carried, that would be the result.
	Our reservations are heightened by the wording used. "Containing" global warming is the key international challenge—the Kyoto protocol territory. Natural England will be able to make a more than useful contribution through the way it runs its operations, its comments on development plans and so on—the sort of decisions that the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, was talking about—but it will not be a large player in international development and energy policy. Natural England's contribution will lie more in drawing attention to the impact of global warming on the natural environment and facilitating its adaptation.
	I was asked who the lead player is. Defra agencies, such as the Environment Agency and Natural England, of course have an important role. Because this topic is so wide-ranging, however, a government department leads. That department is, of course, Defra.
	I hope that my brief remarks about the Government's expectations of Natural England—in having regard to the need to contain global warming—offer some reassurance to the noble Lord. He will be, as all of us will, a key monitor of Natural England's performance in this area. I am sure he will take us to task if he feels it falls short of its potential. On that basis I invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend and to the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, for their support. If the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, will forgive me for putting it this way, he could perfectly well support me. There is absolutely no problem in my mind for Natural England to have to make a judgment on the siting of a wind farm in an area of outstanding natural beauty and on the risk of global warming. It is a perfectly proper judgment to make. If Natural England does not feel that it is up to the task, and if the Minister were to deny that it was up to that task, then frankly we have all failed. So I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, says, but, with the greatest deference, it would be perfectly reasonable for that sort of judgment to be made. Somebody will have to make it. If Natural England is properly to care for the countryside, in its widest context, then it seems to me that it is a proper judgment that it has to make.
	The Minister made all sorts of statements about the importance of this subject in the work of Natural England. Of course, I entirely accept that Natural England will not be an international player in this matter, but it will be a serious player in all countryside affairs. There will not be one bit of the countryside in the whole of our United Kingdom that will not be affected in some way—maybe sometimes beneficially, but in other cases adversely—by this subject. The Minister has said so. Curiously enough, I understand his reluctance to see this subject mentioned in this clause, but I do not accept his judgment. I think his judgment is wrong. The amendment should be in. The subject is sufficiently important that we ought to put it there. Therefore we should test the opinion of the House.

On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 1) shall be agreed to?
	*Their Lordships divided: Contents, 99; Not-Contents, 143.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.

Lord Bach: moved Amendment No. 2:
	Page 2, line 17, at end insert—
	"( ) The purpose in subsection (2)(e) may, in particular, be carried out by working with local communities."

Lord Bach: My Lords, this amendment is our response to the debate on Report on an amendment which would have made rural communities a focus of Natural England's efforts to promote social and economic well-being through the management of the natural environment. We made it clear on Report that we could not accept sole reference to rural communities because Natural England has an important role in bringing the benefits of a healthy, well managed and accessible natural environment to urban communities as well. However, we agreed to look into it and, if we could find acceptable wording, bring back a government amendment at Third Reading. This is it and I am grateful to the noble Baroness for having raised this issue on previous occasions. The amendment makes it clear that Natural England may work with local communities—both urban and rural—to secure social and economic benefits through management of the natural environment. I beg to move.

Baroness Byford: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister. We have had quite a few discussions on this issue both within and outside the Chamber and I am glad that the Minister and the Government have managed to find a form of words. While obviously the amendment does not refer specifically to rural areas, we appreciate that the Bill also covers urban areas. We welcome the amendment.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Baroness Byford: moved Amendment No. 3:
	Page 2, line 17, at end insert—
	"( ) In the event of any significant, irreconcilable conflict in the delivery of Natural England's objectives, greater weight shall be given to those relating to the conservation of the natural environment."

Baroness Byford: My Lords, here we return to the issue of conflict, which has been very fully debated at various stages of the Bill. However, it still needs to be considered further, which is why I have tabled an amendment. On Report, there was some confusion about the Government's position in response to the amendment that we had tabled. As a result, I reserved the right to take further advice and, if necessary, to return to the subject at Third Reading. As more and more rules, regulations, codes and strictures wind around our lives, it becomes ever more likely that irreconcilable positions will be assumed for the best of motives and in response to genuine interpretations of the law.
	We talk of Natural England as though it were a single entity such as a sculpture, but in fact it will be a body comprised of people each of whom will have a slightly different slant on any matter under discussion. They will be paid remuneration and allowances as the Secretary of State may determine, but they will not be employees. They will not be appointed because of their willingness to toe a line—at least I sincerely hope not. It is to be hoped that they will take a very independent stance. I believe that they will be people of independent mind with knowledge and expertise for the positions that they hold, but they will bring to those positions very different experiences and opinions. The purposes assigned to them will be the mainspring of their collective actions.
	The Secretary of State will issue directions or guidance that will tend to be fairly non-specific and couched in terms such as "the board may", if it is guidance, or "the board must have regard to", if they are directions. In those circumstances, a conflict resolution provision would give a firmer steer to Natural England. The issue could be viewed in the light, for example, of conserving and enhancing the natural landscape, or securing the provision of facilities for enjoyment of the natural environment. I have deliberately left out the words "study" and "understanding" because Clause 2(2)(c) does not make it clear whether all three requirements—"study, understanding and enjoyment"—have to be present at the same time. But that is a minor issue and presumably the Secretary of State will sort it out in her directions.
	I know that I am not alone in being concerned about the danger of conflict arising from these proposals. The EFRA Select Committee, speakers from all parties in another place and several noble Lords in Committee have all spoken in favour of some form of conflict resolution mechanism. None of us has sought to suggest that the process of decision making would be at fault, hence there would be no recourse to judicial review for anyone wishing to challenge a Natural England decision; nor has it been suggested that there should be an automatic prioritisation of the natural environment at all times.
	The Oxford English Dictionary defines ideas that are "irreconcilable" as,
	"unable to be brought into harmony or made consistent".
	We consider that neither the Countryside Commission nor the Nature Conservancy Council was given a brief which allowed for such opinion. English Nature and the Countryside Agency were not troubled by internal inconsistencies; they made recommendations which were either agreed to or ignored. To be a trenchant champion of the natural environment with a duty to contribute to social and economic well-being may nevertheless leave Natural England in a cleft stick, but our amendment would ensure that it could not happen.
	I emphasise that we do not anticipate this provision being used very much. We are concerned, however, as "Farming Today" stated this morning, that in instances of major conflict between government departments the argument should be brought clearly into the open. We support that: Natural England should not be called on to arbitrate in such circumstances. The Government should not be able to devolve their own responsibilities to it. We believe that, to be a champion of the natural environment, Natural England must be seen to be so. The most damaging event for its reputation will be an occasion where the board is unreconciled, the press is in hot pursuit, the Government are disclaiming responsibility and the various lobby groups are given tongue.
	I am sure that none of us wishes to see this solution being used at all, but I refer noble Lords to our debate on Report, when the Minister said:
	"it would not be appropriate to cover conflict resolution in the statutory guidance".—[Official Report, 15/3/06; col. 1275.]
	If your Lordships remember, the Government did a U-turn; we were told one thing on Monday and something else on Thursday with no satisfactory explanation. I hope that the Minister will give us at least some form of explanation, because if it was not possible to do it through guidance then, I wonder what has changed or whether the thinking has changed. I seek clarity from the Minister. I beg to move.

Lord Chorley: My Lords, I have been a rather wobbly supporter of the Sandford principle in the Bill's context, mainly because the issue is more complex than it is in the case of national parks, where I am firmly behind Sandford. In Committee, the principle was going to apply only to Natural England's first purpose, in the sense that it had precedence over the second purpose. That was a little odd, as at times it would be difficult to apply in such a situation. Under the noble Baroness's amendment, it would apply to both purposes; at least, that is my reading of it.
	On Report, the noble Baroness referred to a letter in which the countryside Minister, Mr Jim Knight, had made a proposal. I received a copy of the letter, as did others, and I thought the proposal a sensible solution and a better way of dealing with the matter, because it took a more flexible approach. It turned out to be a red herring, because the Minister withdrew it, as we have just heard. I do not know what the problem was, but it was a pity that that happened. I would prefer to go back to that proposal. However, here we are back to square one, although not quite, because the amendment that we have before us is different from the one in Committee in a significant respect: it is wider.
	The amendment has three key features. First, it applies to the first two purposes as against the remaining three, to which I indirectly referred. It therefore deals with my original worry on how in practice we can deal with differences between purpose 1 and purpose 2—or (a) and (b), as it is in the Bill—or whether we would want to or even should. Secondly, the issue has to be significant; that is important. Thirdly, the conflict has to be irreconcilable; whatever is proposed must be incompatible with one of the last three purposes, as I have said before. That is a demanding test. The occasions when such a conflict occurs will be rare or at least fairly infrequent.
	The most likely cause will, I guess, be cases of unlimited access across an important SSSI, where irredeemable damage would be done. In most such cases, the issue would be resolved by limiting access—for example, by time of year, time of day or locationally. In other words, most such issues can be resolved by limiting access rather than by instituting a complete ban. The other area of conflict might have to do with economic development masquerading under the banner of the fifth purpose.
	I am left with one niggling worry: will it open the flank to the threat of judicial review? I am prepared to put up with that risk, so on balance I will go for the amendment if the noble Baroness divides the House. The guidance of Sandford is useful. Unlike the Minister, I do not think that it will unduly cramp the style of the new board.

Baroness Young of Old Scone: My Lords, noble Lords have already recognised the muddle that we seemed to get into at a previous stage of the Bill with the guidance that existed and then did not exist—it came and went. The matter was perhaps inadequately debated at the previous stage and therefore I shall speak for slightly longer than is appropriate at this stage of the proceedings.
	In supporting the amendment, I want to hark back to what some noble Lords may regard as ancient history, but which I think is a valid comparison—the position that English Nature found itself in on its establishment in the early 1990s. Noble Lords who recall the axing apart of the Nature Conservancy Council, which had covered the four countries of the UK until then, may recall that that act purported to be about devolution but was actually an act of neat revenge on the NCC, which had been a fairly trenchant champion of nature conservation until then. Indeed, it had "got in the way" of economic development on occasion and was reviled by some sectors of politics at that point. As a result, it suffered the penalty of being divided into four bits.
	The NCC was also penalised in a different way, in that it was given a strong political signal at that time that that was the sort of thing which happened to bodies that stood up for nature conservation—they got hacked into pieces and told to sit in a hole and not be particularly championing in their approach. Indeed, for the first five or six years of its existence, English Nature did behave like that. It was frightened of its own shadow and it was not particularly robust in supporting nature conservation. Its staff were, at best, confused about their role and, at worst, demoralised. They were not explicitly told that if they put their head out of the hole it would be shot off, but that was certainly how they perceived the lie of the land. Basically, we had a nature conservation body which, due to an implicit political signal, would not even say "Boo" to a goose, far less to anybody who wanted to damage nature conservation interests. I am not saying that that will be the position as regards Natural England on its establishment, but those events show the power of gentle political signals in one direction or another. They were very much the result of an implicit rather than an explicit signal from the government of the time.
	Successive leaderships of English Nature have changed that. They have made it clear that standing up for nature conservation is an okay thing to do. Indeed, we have seen some excellent work on the promotion of sustainable development through the conservation of nature done by English Nature since then. I believe that we run a double risk in not seeing either guidance to Natural England, or something in the Bill if guidance is not forthcoming. Without the right signal from government on the predominance of nature conservation, we run the risk that in some of the very rare, but nevertheless real, moments when there is considerable pressure from socio-economic development interests, harm will be done to nature conservation or the landscape. That is a problem. The double whammy is that, having argued all the way through the Bill that such a signal should not be given, the Government almost send the implicit signal that impacted on English Nature at its birth—that balance at all times is the order of the day and that, even in the rare circumstances where there is significant and irreconcilable conflict, that balance should be maintained. The risk is that during the passage of the Bill we are giving the wrong signal to Natural England at its birth.
	On Report, the Minister talked about the risks of guidance. I declare an interest as chief executive of the Environment Agency. The Environment Agency is subject to 57 pages of guidance, which is renewed and reviewed every five years. At the agency's inception, the guidance contained some provisions that I was pretty sure we would be judicially reviewed on. I hesitated long and hard before I raised this issue on the Floor of the House today, because you can bet your bottom dollar that someone out there will read Hansard and come to the conclusion that we should be judicially reviewed on our sustainable development principle, but nevertheless we have not yet in our 10 years—it is our birthday this year—been so reviewed. To worry about guidance leaving an organisation wide open to frequent judicial review is probably not necessary.
	I am conscious that it is unlikely that the Minister will have a change of heart at this stage in the proceedings. A gentle signal given through guidance to the new body that biodiversity and landscape must, when push comes to shove and significant and irreconcilable conflict takes place between the purposes, take precedence is not a huge thing to ask for and does not expose the new organisation to risk. I hope that the Minister might delight us all by saying that he has changed his mind.

Lord Cameron of Dillington: My Lords, I spoke against this clause on Report, having been an agnostic in Committee. The whole point of Clause 2 is that it creates an equilibrium whereby Natural England must decide by itself where the right balance lies. Sustainable development is key here. I do not believe that Natural England will be cowed, as the noble Baroness, Lady Young, said about English Nature in its early days, by the economic case. I very firmly do not believe that Parliament should be taking decisions for Natural England in advance of hypothetical cases yet to come up before its board. That is all wrong. To quote my noble friend Lord Chorley, as he stated on the previous amendment, Natural England should be allowed to keep its hands free.

Lord Greenway: My Lords, I have consistently opposed the inclusion of the Sandford principle in the general purposes of the Bill. At Second Reading the Minister said that the Government had considered this clause very carefully and they thought that they had come up with the right balance. I agree on that; we have the right balance. The Sandford principle, commendable though it is in relation to national parks, is not appropriate to this Bill, because Natural England will have a remit far wider than that of national parks, including urban areas. It is correct that recreational and socio-economic interests should be balanced with conservation interests. It is not beyond the wit of the board of Natural England to come up with solutions when it comes up against conflict.

The Earl of Erroll: My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Greenway. I am cynical enough to believe that someone could dig their toes in enough to make something irreconcilable and therefore always push it into an environmental decision. I have seen that sort of behaviour before elsewhere. It would be very dangerous to accept the amendment.

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, on Report I said that we on these Benches were of the opinion that it was impossible to legislate for every single sort of case that Natural England would have to look at. When noble Lords are considering the amendment, it is important to remember that the board will be looking at dozens of cases that will be reconcilable. They will sometimes be extremely difficult to balance and yet they will be able to come to some form of opinion on them. It is not that the board will not have enough experience. In moving the amendment the noble Baroness said that it will be a body of people with different slants—independent people with knowledge and expertise. We will have to trust the board to be able to make judgments. It is possible that once every decade or so it will get that judgment wrong. We will probably be sad about that. However, it will get its judgments right most of the time. In the rare instance that it gets the judgment wrong, this clause would not necessarily get it right either, for all the reasons that other noble Lords have given.
	The Bill has also strengthened—for example, in Clause 40, with the duty to conserve biodiversity—the position of wildlife, which is quite different from what it was at the time the noble Baroness, Lady Young, referred to. That was back in the days when you had only Swampy to defend the great crested newts against the roads. Time has moved on, which is part of the point of the CROW Act and, I hope, will be part of the point of this Act. I hope that it is one reason why we do not need this amendment—I believe that it is.

Lord Bach: My Lords, we return to conflict resolution. Whatever view we take of this, I am grateful that we have had debates on four occasions, including Second Reading, on this important topic. I am grateful, too, for the spirit in which those debates have been conducted. It will not surprise noble Lords to know that the Government remain opposed to including a clause of this type in the Bill.
	Natural England's purpose, and the powers it has to research, experiment, advise and fund, have been drafted to be broad and enabling and, in particular, to give it the flexibility and, above all, the independence to be an effective and, indeed, trenchant—a word heard often in this House—champion of the natural environment, taking action on a wide front. However, Natural England will, of course, make its decisions in the context of sustainable development. It will contribute to sustainable development by proactively seeking solutions which, while achieving environmental benefits, also provide long-term economic and social benefits, and avoid untoward economic and social impacts.
	With that remit at the forefront of our minds, I invite noble Lords to imagine that they are board members of Natural England. What sort of issues will come up for discussion and decision? I offer a few examples: first, deciding whether to fund a new initiative to improve the quality and accessibility of urban open space; secondly, advising government on their climate change action plan; thirdly, deciding how to target agri-environment funds to get the best value for money; fourthly, advising government on the management of a wild species whose population is out of control; and lastly, deciding whether or not to enter a statutory objection to a road scheme.
	Noble Lords will remember the lively debate on Report about the pros and cons of tourist development in the Cairngorms. It is of course unlikely that Natural England will comment on a development in Scotland, but it is not a bad example of the type of complex issue which will come before the board.
	Would the clause help members of the board to decide Natural England's position on the breadth of issues I have just listed? In each case, they would need to consider which of their objectives were in conflict. For example, is there a conflict between both social and economic well-being and environmental conservation, or just one of these? Perhaps there is a conflict between the study of the natural environment and conservation, or between the enhancement of the natural environment and its conservation. How might they resolve a conflict between the conservation of landscape and the protection of biodiversity, both of which are aspects of the natural environment? Having identified their conflicts, they must consider whether each one is "significant" and "irreconcilable". Thus, having reached a short list, they must decide exactly how to give "greater weight" to conservation and ensure that their decision is fully documented to show that it has taken into account all relevant considerations to resist challenge—possibly through judicial review. The effect of imposing such a statutory duty within Natural England's general purpose, far from being helpful to their deliberations as board members, would, in practice, be closer to a nightmare. The board would certainly need extremely good and attentive expert and legal advice to help to decide when a matter falls within the category of "significant, irreconcilable conflict".
	It is not just the board of Natural England that must jump through those hoops. Every officer making a grant, issuing a licence or offering advice is likely to come under pressure from either the public or the affected customer to decide whether the situation at hand does or does not come within the parameters of this duty. That is likely to result in very detailed reasoning having to be recorded for all decisions that are made, which could add significantly to the workload of the new body.
	Perhaps we should ask why no other equivalent body has a conflict resolution clause—not English Nature; not the Countryside Agency; not the Countryside Council for Wales; not Scottish Natural Heritage; not even the Environment Agency itself. None has such a duty. It may not be a surprise but the technical briefing to your Lordships of those bodies that will make up Natural England states that,
	"the Bill aims to set up Natural England with a clear purpose but an integrated and measured overview of the natural environment. An independent NDPB should have the freedom to engage in debate with all parties and decide how it achieves its purpose, within a sustainable development context. The agency aims to be a robust champion for the natural environment and to exercise its judgement accordingly—it should not be told how to resolve any particular conflict".
	That is the Government's view, too.
	The case against a conflict resolution clause seems to be powerful. However, even if we are proved wrong, there remains the option of statutory guidance. As your Lordships know, and I make it abundantly clear again, we do not think that there is a case at the outset to issue guidance on the subject to Natural England. If, in time, it becomes clear, which we do not expect, that Natural England's decisions, or perhaps one subset of decisions, would benefit from such statutory guidance on how to resolve conflicts, we have the option of issuing such guidance, following consultation, as set out in Clause 15(3) of the Bill.
	We believe that Clause 2, when read together with the Explanatory Notes, will provide the right framework for the board of Natural England to decide how to address the diverse range of complex issues that fall within its remit. It will be one of the Government's key advisers on managing the natural environment. Our argument is that it would not be right to constrain the judgment of the board in the Bill in the way proposed in the amendment, or to expose it to the threat—however unlikely—of judicial review on this ground for every difficult decision that it and its officers take. It is for those reasons that I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

Baroness Byford: My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken, and I also thank those who do not agree with me. The joy of this House is that we have to make judgments at times. Obviously there are times when we disagree, and this is a very important clause.
	I understand where the noble Lords, Lord Chorley, Lord Cameron and Lord Greenway, the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, and the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, are coming from. I do not agree with their position but I respect their views. I think that some form of inclusion in the Bill, such as we are suggesting, would be of benefit.
	I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, for her honest reflection of what happened when English Nature came into being. Although it was some years ago, and I accept that the noble Baroness said that times have moved on, it is clear that there may be times when the sort of amendment that we are proposing today would benefit the new board when it is set up.
	It is a difficult issue. In my opening remarks I asked the Minister about how the Government would come back with guidance if it were necessary. They considered the issue originally on that Monday, and then changed their minds three days later and decided that guidance was not relevant or that they could not do it. How, even if it were in a delayed period of time—I should like the Minister to clarify that for me—would the Government be able to come forward with some form of guidance?
	If it is not possible now, I do not understand how it could be possible in the future. Whatever reasons the Government had thought about at the time must be as relevant in the future. In his response to the amendment, the Minister said that if at some time in the future it were considered necessary, it would be possible to give statutory guidance, but he gave no indication how soon that might be or how it might be achieved. Only a week ago, we were told that it was not possible.
	This is Third Reading, so I am in the very difficult position of having to put the amendment to a vote, as the Minister is unable to give me answers to the legitimate questions that I have raised. In the normal course of events, I would have thanked the Minister for his guidance and accepted the fact that it could be reviewed. However, he is unable to tell me how he would achieve that or what the time limit would be. It is not being reviewed in a three-year or a five-year period. We have been given no indication whatever on that.

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, I am put in a very difficult position. Questions should be put to the Minister while he is on its feet and before he sits down. With the leave of the House, if I correctly sense the good will of the House, the Minister could reply. Questions at Third Reading must be put to the Minister while he or she is speaking.

Baroness Byford: My Lords, I am very grateful. I was a little too slow to do that. I apologise.

Lord Bach: My Lords, I shall do my best. If I repeat myself, I apologise. At the moment, we are strongly against a clause to the effect of that put forward by the noble Baroness. We do not believe it is necessary; we think we should leave the matter to the independent judgment of Natural England. As I said, if, in the course of time, it becomes clear that the decisions of Natural England, or perhaps one subset of decisions, would benefit from statutory guidance on how to resolve the conflicts, we have the option, at any time, of adding to guidance that is already in place—of course, if Parliament were to agree—and issuing such guidance, following consultation. Our power to do that is set out in Clause 15(3). I make it clear that we do not feel there is any need for guidance at this stage. We think the matter should be left to the independent judgment of this important new body. But if we are wrong about that and if, in the future, that view is taken, we can issue statutory guidance.

Baroness Byford: My Lords, I thank the Minister and I thank the House for allowing the Minister to respond. However, he has not answered any of the questions that I asked him. The first was on how to achieve statutory guidance. Earlier we had been told what the situation was in a letter that we received from Alun Michael on the Monday, but by Thursday we were told that it was not possible to have guidance. Secondly, the Minister has given no indication that that may be reviewed at some time in the future. I do not want to get on the wrong side of things, but I am forced to test the opinion of the House.

On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 3) shall be agreed to?
	Their Lordships divided: Contents, 82; Not-Contents, 193.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
	Clause 18 [Commission's general purpose]:
	[Amendment No. 4 not moved.]
	Clause 19 [Representation, advice and monitoring]:

Lord Bach: moved Amendment No. 5:
	Page 7, line 29, leave out from "which" to "and" in line 30 and insert "relevant persons' policies are developed, adopted and implemented (by rural proofing or otherwise)"

Lord Bach: My Lords, Amendment No. 5 revisits the role of the Commission for Rural Communities with respect to rural-proofing. The noble Lord, Lord Cameron, spoke very convincingly to an amendment on this subject at Report. I responded that I was minded to accept the principles of his amendment, but that he and I should agree a slightly different form of words for the Bill.
	The noble Lord and I had what I think we would both describe as a very interesting and, I hope, very positive discussion on this issue, and the form of words set out in the amendment is one with which we are, I hope, both content.
	Amendment No. 5 makes a revision to Clause 19(c) that further clarifies the role of the Commission for Rural Communities with respect to rural-proofing. It will widen the CRC's monitoring role to include looking at how bodies develop policy as well as implement it. That will enable it to make better judgments about how the rural-proofing process is undertaken by organisations—for example councils or RDAs—as they develop their strategies. It will also enable the CRC to provide government departments and other bodies with an impartial, expert view not only of the way in which their policies are meeting rural needs, but of whether their processes of policy development are taking proper account of the rural angle.
	Given the definition of "relevant persons" elsewhere in the Bill, Clause 19(c) empowers the CRC to undertake this role in respect of bodies in both the public sector and the private and voluntary sectors, where such bodies are concerned with any aspect of rural needs. All that will add weight to the CRC's advocacy and watchdog roles, and will make the CRC a body that must be listened to.
	The role of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in rural proofing will remain unchanged. Defra champions rural-proofing within government, taking the lead on setting rural-proofing policy and promoting rural-proofing to government bodies at all levels and providing advice to other government departments and delivery bodies on how best they can support delivery of the Government's rural agenda.
	Clarifying the role of the CRC in the way set out by this amendment will help both Defra and the CRC to work together to help to ensure that polices which affect rural areas are adequately rural-proofed and that the needs of people and business in rural areas are properly considered by policy makers. That will, I am sure, be good news to anyone concerned with the well-being and future of rural areas.
	In commending the amendment to the House, I put on record our appreciation of the persuasive support of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, for the CRC and other sections of the Bill. Rural-proofing has been a successful policy tool since its introduction in 2000, not least, if I may say so, because of the role which the noble Lord played during his time as chairman of the Countryside Agency. I beg to move.

Lord Carter: My Lords, I added my name to the rural-proofing amendment tabled in Committee, and I am sure that the Minister will remember our short debate on Report on rural housing. Although that debate was on another amendment, it was an excellent example of rural-proofing at work. I would like to think that our debate rural-proofed—if that is the right word—the Government's housing policy in the shared ownership sector. As we know, the Government have decided not to change the policy as they had intended, for which we are extremely grateful. The words are just right if you read them in the context of a practical example of the sort that I have just given of rural housing. That would certainly fit into this and all the other areas. This is good wording, and I shall certainly accept it.

Lord Cameron of Dillington: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his kind words, and for being as good as his word and including the words "rural-proofing" in the Bill. It really is very important to strengthen the CRC in this way, and the fact that it must now examine the way in which other persons and departments develop, adopt and implement policies through a rural-proofing process will be crucial for rural areas in the future. I greatly support the amendment.

Baroness Byford: My Lords, I spoke in Committee and on Report on this, and I particularly endorse the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Carter. I hope that they are a very good example of what the Commission for Rural Communities will do, and I am grateful to the Minister for retabling the amendment.

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, I certainly believe that the amendment strengthens the Bill greatly, and I am very grateful that the Government have drawn the conclusion that they have under the helpful guidance of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington. Before we go too far in our encouragement of rural-proofing, perhaps the first thing that the CRC could scrutinise is the plan of the Department for Work and Pensions to abolish Post Office card accounts.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Viscount Allenby of Megiddo: My Lords, I must inform the House that in the first Division this afternoon, the number voting "Not-Content" was 144 and not 143, as previously announced.

Clause 57 [Effect of failure to serve certain notices in connection with SSSIs]:

Lord Bach: moved Amendment No. 6:
	Page 22, line 14, after "has" insert "(whether before or after the commencement of this section)"

Lord Bach: My Lords, Clause 57 provides a saving for the validity of SSSI notifications where it appears that the conservation bodies discover a missed party, despite having taken all reasonable steps to discharge the duty to notify every owner and occupier of the site. In Committee, my noble friend Lord Carter raised the important issue of applying this measure retrospectively to protect all existing sites against a legal challenge on this basis. On Report, the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, tabled an amendment which sought to achieve that. I promised to return on Third Reading with amendments that would do so satisfactorily. I note the support for this in the House, and I am delighted to say that I have been able to do what noble Lords have asked.
	Amendment No. 6 ensures that the provision applies to SSSI notifications given either before or after its commencement, thereby capturing all existing sites. Amendment No. 7 deals with the important question of liability. We should bear in mind that we are talking about a very small minority of people compared with the many thousands of notified owners and occupiers. Nevertheless, we considered it right, in ensuring the validity of the sites, to provide that liability is not imposed in respect of any action or inaction that occurred before commencement of the provision.
	Amendment No. 7 ensures that liability in relation to the two specified offences that concern owners and occupiers will not be imposed until they have come to light and the conservation bodies have served the notification papers on them. I beg to move.

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, I am most grateful to the Government for coming back with this amendment to strengthen SSSIs.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Lord Bach: moved Amendment No. 7:
	Page 23, line 5, leave out "under section 28P(1)" and insert "—
	(a) in relation to anything done or omitted to be done before the commencement of this section, or
	(b) under section 28P(1) or 28Q(4)"
	On Question, amendment agreed to.
	Clause 67 [Ending of certain existing unrecorded public rights of way]:

Lord Bach: moved Amendment No. 8:
	Page 27, line 22, after "main" insert "lawful"

Lord Bach: My Lords, Amendment No. 8 is tabled after consideration of Amendment No. 138A which was moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, on Report. It strengthens new subsection (2)(a) of Clause 67, which will exempt from extinguishment any route where it can be shown that, for five years before commencement, public use had been mainly by motor vehicles. It does that by ensuring that, in determining the balance of use prior to commencement, only lawful use by mechanically propelled vehicles is taken into account.
	On Report, I undertook to consider four other amendments. We have looked at them carefully, but have concluded that we cannot table amendments such as these. I will briefly explain why. Amendments Nos. 146 and 150 sought to amend what is now Clause 67(5) and new subsection (7B) of the Highways Act 1980—inserted by Clause 69(1)—so that, to be made "correctly", applications for definitive map modification orders must comply with paragraphs 1 and 2 of Schedule 14 to the 1981 Act.
	On a practical level, that sort of amendment would open up uncertainty because it could easily be a matter of dispute whether paragraph 2 had been complied with. More significantly, it would not work because paragraph 2 is not about making an application; it is about whether an application has been made. Nevertheless, as these two provisions stand, for an application to be valid it has to be submitted in the prescribed form with the correct supporting documentary evidence.
	We are grateful to the noble Baroness for her assistance in tabling Amendments Nos. 154ZA and 154ZB on Report, but having now had an opportunity to consider those amendments further, we have concluded that the exemption works properly without the amendments. We are satisfied that the government amendment which is now incorporated into Clause 70 closed any potential loophole and that no further amendments to this clause are necessary.
	I understand that there are residual concerns about whether it will be possible for people to argue that they are lawful visitors to a RUPP. Under new subsection (2A) of the Road Traffic Act 1988, introduced by Clause 70, the exemption covers only those who have an interest in the land, or, after commencement, are visitors to any land. People using former RUPPs for recreational purposes will not be lawful visitors to land after commencement. RUPPs will be reclassified as restricted byways immediately before commencement, and restricted byways do not carry rights for mechanically propelled vehicles. I beg to move.

Lord Bradshaw: My Lords, I thank the Minister for what he has said, which has cleared up two outstanding issues from Report stage. Both issues were doubtful. But, from what the Minister has said, first, any claim for a byway which is submitted to a local authority must be a properly made claim on the proper forms—a postcard, as it were, through the door of the local authority would not constitute a proper claim. Secondly, anyone using RUPPs which are converted to restricted byways will not be able to do so as "casual" people. They would be able to do so only with access to someone who enjoys rights of access along that highway. I am grateful to and thank the Minister.

Baroness Byford: My Lords, I thank the Minister again for having listened to the weight of debate that we had on Amendments Nos. 138A, 146 and 150. We are very glad of the clarification, particularly on the two items that were still not quite settled. In thanking the Minister for taking on the thoughts behind the amendment, I have a question for him—I think it is a simple one, so I hope he will be able to answer it now. If the land in question were to be sold, how would the seller confirm that a right of way for vehicles was already there and if the lawful use in the five years prior to commencement was not by the public but by a person with an interest in the land, would this clause still apply? This is a minor clarification, but I would be grateful to have it before we accept this amendment.
	I am grateful to the Minister because several questions have been raised about access and the proper use of land and I am even more grateful for his clarification that a claim cannot be accepted until it is properly fulfilled and completed in the fullest sense. I await the Minister's response to my question.

Lord Bach: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for taking her time making her points. Her question may have been simple to her, but I am not sure that it was simple to me or to others. We will be debating rights of way in the next amendment, so I shall come back to her on this point then. I can write to the noble Baroness, but it would be nice to clear this matter up today. I hope that that will be acceptable.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Lord Carter: moved Amendment No. 9:
	Page 27, line 38, leave out "19th May 2005" and insert "the relevant date"

Lord Carter: My Lords, in moving my amendment, I remind the House that debate has to be relevant to the question before the House. It will be interesting to see how the Minister gets the answer to the noble Baroness's question on the previous amendment into debate on a later amendment.
	Amendment No. 9 is a paving amendment for Amendment No. 11, which makes the relevant date in England 20 January 2005 and in Wales 19 May 2005. Your Lordships will know that 20 January 2005 was when the Government published their response to the consultation proposals, their framework for action on which they announced their intention to legislate.
	I had intended to go into great detail on this amendment, but I note that the Minister has added his name to it, which leads me to suppose that he intends to support Amendments Nos. 9 and 11. If that is the case, I will leave him to set out the Government's case for the amendment. I beg to move.

Lord Bach: My Lords, I hope that the House will forgive me for getting up at this stage to confirm our support for the amendment tabled by my noble friend. We had lengthy and useful discussions in Committee and on Report on this aspect of the Bill and there is a great deal of interest in it inside and outside this House. I set out at length—maybe at too much length on one occasion—the sound reasons why we could not accept the earlier amendments setting a cut-off date of 9 December 2003. Having said that, and without wanting to repeat those arguments, the Government recognise the cross-party strength of feeling on this issue. A huge amount of correspondence about this has been received not only by Members of Parliament but also by Members of this House. That correspondence has been reflected in the strength of feeling expressed here and in the other place. In recognition of that strength of feeling, the Government are prepared—reluctantly—to accept a cut-off date of 20 January 2003, which, as my noble friend said, represents the end of the consultation period. We feel that this date could be justified. I am sorry, I am wrong—

Lord Carter: No, my Lords. It is 2005.

Lord Bach: My Lords, I said 2003, because that is what is written here.

Noble Lords: Oh!

Lord Bach: My Lords, the fault is entirely mine. I will start that sentence again to avoid any misunderstanding.
	In recognition of the strength of feeling, the Government are reluctantly prepared to accept a cut-off date of 20 January 2005. This date is justified as it is the date on which the Government published their conclusions on the outcome of the consultation in which they first announced their clear intention to introduce, at the earliest legislative opportunity, these rights of way provisions.

Baroness Byford: My Lords, I speak to my amendment, which is linked to these two amendments. I believe we are finally coming to the end of the road—although that is perhaps a bad pun—on this highly contentious issue. My original amendment would have set the exemption date back to 9 December 2003. I will not have a go at the Minister for that slight slip a minute ago. All noble Lords are aware of the substance of that debate and the motives behind it. We on these Benches are still of the opinion that our original date of December 2003 is the preferable option. The issue of figures has been quite confusing. Across the board, the number is widely agreed to be very high. Taking into account multiple applications, I have estimated that there have been 1,000 applications since December 2003.
	The issue, however, is not necessarily the number of applications affected. We all heard on Report—because I spoke on it—about the story of Dr Karen Hinckley and the damage done to the green lanes of her parish by motorised vehicles. There are now no protected green lanes left in her parish. There have been applications to convert every green lane in the parish into a BOAT. As it will take years to process, the use of green lanes will continue unabated. It is simply too difficult to prosecute those using green lanes that have applications pending.
	It came to my attention only last week that the Trail Riders Fellowship has been paying its members a £250 bonus if they manage to make a successful claim. I understand that the Minister in another place knew about that some time ago. I was shocked to receive a flier, in which it promised to,
	"pay back your membership over and over again".
	That is not the action of a group that has a responsible or thoughtful attitude—either to the applications process or to the land which they will use.
	That is the state of affairs in many parts of the country. Our belief is that the more applications that fall under the cut-off provision, the better it is for conservation and for those who use green lanes in the countryside. Many people whose hobby is horse riding have told me that where they may have used those lanes in the past, they now cannot. The lanes are so damaged that they fear they will damage and break the legs of their horses.
	We are grateful to the Minister, however, for adding his name to the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Carter, which would take the date back from 19 May 2005, to January 2005. The GLPG has estimated that that will save another 500 pending applications—that is, of applications that we know about. The other 500 or so applications made between December 2003 and January 2005 will still stand and will have to be processed.
	We recognise, however, that this is a very positive move from the Government. In spite of the amendment that we had tabled prior to hearing of this concession, we on these Benches support it. I thank the Minister for his constructive response to our case for protecting green lanes. I urge other noble Lords who spoke in support of my amendment in Committee and on Report to support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Carter, to which the Minister's name has been added.

Viscount Tenby: My Lords, I tender my apologies to the House for not being able to speak at Report last Monday. My name was on the original amendment.
	All the relevant arguments have been powerfully made on this point in particular by the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, and by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw. They really have stretched it out. I had the impression looking through the debate that the Minister, with his usual thoroughness and courtesy, was not entirely unfriendly to the purpose behind the amendment, and we have since heard that that is the case today. Any increase in the bulging backlog of applications will inevitably result in further deterioration in BOATs, green lanes, RUPPs and the like. While they are being processed, already overburdened parish and county councils will be diverted from repairing the damage which has already taken place very extensively.
	Whether half a loaf will be better than none remains to be seen but I feel I must accept, if not gracefully at least realistically. I am grateful to the Minister for offering to reduce the problem so generously, even if it falls short of what we had hoped for at the start of these deliberations.

Lord Bradshaw: My Lords, I shall listen to one part of the Minister's reply very carefully—when he replies to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, on the police's enforcement powers when a right of way is used and a claim has been submitted but not actually determined. I believe that the police have the powers to deal with anyone who uses a right of way for which a claim has been made but which is not recorded on the definitive map, and any feebleness by the police to prosecute those is something on which we should press very hard. There is no doubt at all that the use of many of the rights of way—as the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, said—is quite contrary to the use of the rights of way for horse-riders, walkers and those who wish—and this is what most people want—to enjoy the peace and quiet of the countryside. So I shall be looking in the Minister's reply for a definite statement on what the police are expected to do, and what they can do, about claims which have not been processed and agreed to and the work carried through to a mark on the definitive map.

Lord Cameron of Dillington: My Lords, I thoroughly approve of the Government's intentions in Clauses 66 and 67. I apologise to the House that I was not here to speak on Report. It all seemed to me absurd that the precedent of the passage of a horse and cart should be used to allow motorised traffic to tear up our green lanes. I still cannot understand why we cannot apply the principles involved now. It seems to me to be rather like the Chancellor of the Exchequer introducing capital gains tax and saying that it will not apply to anyone who has notified that they are going to transfer an asset; in other words, it was not going to bite for several years.
	Perhaps I may give a local example of the effect of the legislation. In my home county of Somerset, since December 2003 we have gone from an applications backlog of 24 to over 200 in respect of byways open to all traffic. The new cut-off date—and I realise that a deal has been done—of 20 January 2005 means that there will still be a backlog of nearly 100 claims. In other words, the speed of progress is about 16 or 17 claims a year, because of the judicial processes and such, and the new rules will not apply for five or six years in Somerset. I do not think that that is right. So I still believe that 9 December would have been the best cut-off date. That way we could have ensured we had the maximum number of paths, where the pleasures of walking on them remained as they are. So I am rather disappointed and would have preferred the original amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Byford.

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: My Lords, I shall speak very briefly and of course I speak in support of what my noble friend Lady Byford said from the Front Bench. I have only two things to say. The first is that the Minister made much at Report of the principle of fairness and the need to make allowance for when particular things had happened. I cannot help but remark that if the Government had acted earlier, we would not have quite the problem that we have today. Although the Minister is coming well out of today's debate, he is coming well out of a bad situation and one that would have been improved—it is not his fault, as he was not the Minister at the time—if the Government had acted earlier. If they had done, we would not have as much of a backlog as we have. Secondly, the Minister will recall that I asked him on Report whether it was true that there had been a heavy concentration on Cheshire and Wiltshire. He was unable to answer on that occasion and I quite understand why, but I wonder whether he has the information now.

Lord Bach: My Lords, I am grateful for what the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, and the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, have said. Of course, this compromise does not suit everybody. There will be those who are not entirely satisfied with it; very few people will be entirely satisfied with it. I appreciate the point that the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, made, but it is our view that this is a sensible and suitable compromise and that the Government have listened to the representations that have been made so powerfully—in this House, in the other place and in postbags. Of course the postbags have gone both ways, but in particular in one way.
	I turn immediately to the last point made by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke. The number of claims in Wiltshire is certainly high—there are 85 outstanding BOAT claims. This does not make it the worst, but the figure is high. That does not seem to be the experience in Cheshire, although I do not have the figures for that county.
	I shall deal now with the detailed questions, including one that was raised in our last debate and the query put by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw. This may take me a little time but I will be as quick as I can. The exemption from prosecution under new Section 34(2A) of the Road Traffic Act 1988, inserted by Clause 70 of the Bill, moves to the purchaser of the property, provided that the way was in use at the time that the RUPP became a restricted byway. The "private right" in Clause 67(4) is also attached to the land.
	The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, asked whether, if a person has submitted a claim that is still outstanding and would be preserved by Clause 67(3), that person can continue to use that right of way with a motor vehicle until that claim has been determined and whether the police would be able to prosecute that person. Whether it would be illegal to drive on that right of way would ultimately depend on whether the claim is justified—in other words, where the public motor vehicular rights can be proved to exist. Schedule 7 to the CROW Act strengthens Section 34 of the Road Traffic Act, so that a right of way is taken to carry only those rights that are shown on the definitive map and statement unless the contrary can be proved. In other words, the burden of proof has now been placed squarely on a defendant to prove that public motor vehicular rights exist in order to avoid conviction. So, for example, where a right of way on the definitive map is a presumption, that is correct until proved otherwise.
	It has become apparent to us that Schedule 7 to the CROW Act has been widely misunderstood and that many enforcement agencies and rights of way professionals do not appreciate that the strength in Section 34 is already in force and has been since shortly after the CROW Act received Royal Assent. It is for that reason that we have recently published the guidance entitled Regulating the use of motor vehicles on public rights of way and off road: A guide for Local Authorities, Police and Community Safety Partnerships. It provides information to encourage enforcement authorities to make better use of existing legislation.
	After commencement of Part 6 of this Bill, where claims are not preserved by Clause 67(3) or where there are no outstanding claims, which is of course the vast majority of cases, those who drive motor vehicles on rights of way that are not already recorded as byways open to all traffic will no longer be able to rely on unrecorded public motor vehicular rights as a defence because those rights will, subject to the exemption in Clause 67(3), have been extinguished by subsection (1). This is a complex area of law and we intend to issue guidance to the police, local authorities and others about the rights of way provisions in this Bill. It will include guidance to assist with enforcement of the law over rights of way which are the subject of outstanding applications for BOATs at the time this part becomes law. When a claim has been submitted but not determined, the prosecuting authorities of course have a discretion whether to prosecute in each case, and the existence of a pending application may be a factor relevant to the exercise of that discretion.
	I hope that I have answered all the points raised both in the last debate and today. If not, I shall write to all noble Lords concerned and make available copies of that reply. But so far as the dates are concerned, I am grateful for the attitude taken by noble Lords on the Front Benches and in other parts of the House.

Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, does the guidance issued under the CROW Act, which I understand is relevant to both England and Wales, also apply in Wales?

Lord Bach: Yes, my Lords.

Lord Bradshaw: My Lords, will the noble Lord confirm that the prosecuting authority to which he referred at the close of his remarks is not the police or the local authority, but in fact the Crown Prosecution Service? Will he make sure that any guidance issued goes to that service? I can see very well that it is likely to advise that no case will be brought to prosecution if a claim is outstanding. That really is the nub of the argument that we are trying to put to the Minister.

Lord Bach: Yes, my Lords.

On Question, amendment agreed to.
	[Amendment No. 10 not moved.]

Lord Carter: moved Amendment No. 11:
	Page 28, line 8, at end insert—
	"( ) "The relevant date" means—
	(a) in relation to England, 20th January 2005;
	(b) in relation to Wales, 19th May 2005."
	On Question, amendment agreed to.
	Clause 72 [Traffic regulation on byways etc in National Parks]:

Baroness Byford: moved Amendment No. 12:
	Page 31, line 20, at end insert—
	"(A1) No order shall be made under subsection (2) with respect to any road which would have the effect of limiting access to land, with or without mechanically propelled vehicles, or a person with an interest in that land or their invitees.
	(A2) In subsection (A1) "interest" shall have the meaning given in section 71(1) of the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006."

Baroness Byford: My Lords, this is a minor matter but I seek clarification from the Minister. We debated the issue at length on Report. The amendment would ensure that safeguards are included in the legislation to prevent the making of traffic regulation orders over access to private land for those who make use of that land primarily for business purposes. If I reflect him correctly, on Report the Minister stated that he simply did not share my fears on this. I may be misrepresenting him, which I certainly do not wish to do, but at a subsequent meeting the possibility arose that regulations might be made to prevent restrictions of access where access was needed for longer than the eight-hour allowance provided under national park traffic regulation orders.
	I said at the previous stage that I was not satisfied with the Minister's response to a very real concern for the well-being of businesses in national parks and I would be grateful if he could enlighten me on the presence of those regulations, which I do not believe have yet been clarified sufficiently. I beg to move.

Lord Bach: My Lords, as the noble Baroness said, Amendment No. 12 is similar to an amendment that she tabled on Report, which sought to place limitations on the new traffic regulation order-making powers given to national park authorities by Clause 72. The aim is to ensure that that these powers could not be used to unreasonably restrict access to land by persons with an interest in that land.
	I have explained that we have given the matter careful consideration, but we have not changed our view. I recognise that there is concern that the statutory purposes of national park authorities might at some point lead to those authorities paying less regard to the needs of landowners than local highway authorities would. I do not share that view. National park authorities have a duty when pursuing their statutory purposes to seek to foster the social and economic well-being of local communities. They are used to doing so across the range of their responsibilities, which—after all—include carrying out the functions of the local planning authority.
	In any case, local highway authorities, when making decisions about any matter that might affect a national park, are also required to have regard to the national park statutory purposes. Therefore, if we consider it correct to give the national park authorities powers to make traffic regulation orders, we should do so under the same terms as they are applied by local highway authorities, and the existing safeguards will apply. That is the approach that we usually adopt when entrusting powers to the national park authorities and so far it has proved well founded.
	I want to reassure the noble Baroness and the House that Clause 72 provides for the modification of the national park authorities' TRO-making power, through regulations under subsection (3) of the new section of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984. But I do not envisage that such regulations will be needed to protect access to land by those with an interest in that land. I hope that that is a slightly fuller explanation than was given last time, and I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

Baroness Byford: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister. The issue has been raised with us following the discussions on Report because it was felt that it was not clear enough. I am grateful to the Minister for placing on record further clarification and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Lord Bach: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill do now pass.
	Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Bach.)

Baroness Byford: My Lords, before the Bill passes, I would like to place on the record the thanks of these Benches to Ministers for the way in which they have dealt with the Bill. There have been some contentious issues to overcome. While I would have liked the whole loaf, half a loaf tonight in the protection of the rights of way is welcome. I would also like to express the disappointment of my noble friend the Duke of Montrose. Sadly, through a family death, he had to be in Canada and so was not able to be with us, but I know that he would like to join me in expressing our thanks to the Ministers and other noble Lords.

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, I associate these Benches with the thanks to the Minister. We have had disagreements at times, but we now have a Bill that will, I hope, make the next steps in rural England and, indeed, in relation to the environment in urban communities. From our perspective, this is perhaps more a case of a loaf and a half: we would have liked a bit less carbohydrate in the Bill, but I will not go back there. I, too, thank the Ministers for their time and effort in talking to us between the Bill's stages.

Lord Bach: My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses on behalf of the Government for those kind comments, which I return in turn. This is an important Bill, shortly—I hope—to become an Act of Parliament. That is something that all sides of the House want to see happen as soon as possible. I am extremely grateful for the help that has been given to the Government by noble Lords from all parts of the House. The Bill has been improved significantly since it came to the House; it is now a better Bill.
	I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Haskins, who in a sense is the author of a great deal of the Bill. I also mention my noble friend Lord Whitty, my predecessor, who was in charge of the Bill when he was a Minister at Defra. Certainly not least, I thank my noble friend Lady Farrington for the important part that she has played in our proceedings. I am grateful to noble Lords in all parts of the House, not least the Cross Benches, where a great deal of the expertise on this subject resides.
	On Question, Bill passed, and returned to the Commons with amendments.

Compensation Bill [HL]

Read a third time.
	An amendment (privilege) made.

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass. In so doing, I want to fulfil a commitment that I gave on Report to reflect on the creation of the new Clause 2.
	Noble Lords, particularly the noble Lords, Lord Hunt of Wirral and Lord Goodhart, will know that I certainly agreed with the sentiment that lay behind the new clause but at that point could not accept it. In our previous deliberations the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, made a comment on Ministers who changed their minds. I think that it was meant to be complimentary. I took it as such. I recognise that it is a sign of maturity in anyone if they are able to reflect again and change their mind. Therefore, I am pleased to announce to the House that we shall accept the amendment as it stands. We will not seek to change it in any way. I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Goodhart, for showing me the way on this occasion.
	The Bill is an important contribution to a much wider programme of work. The Government are taking forward many other important initiatives, on which I am proud to lead, to tackle perceptions of a compensation culture and to improve the system for valid claims.
	I am extremely grateful to all noble Lords for the constructive spirit in which they have debated the Bill, which leaves your Lordships' House in a better shape than when it arrived.
	Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Baroness Ashton of Upholland.)

Lord Hunt of Wirral: My Lords, the debates on this Bill have been marked by consensus and common sense and by the positive, constructive and patient approach of the Minister and her team. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, for his very positive approach.
	The Bill leaves this House looking outwardly much as it did at the outset, but some important changes have been made. As the Minister knows, although we have broadly supported the retention of Clause 1, we do have certain doubts.
	The courts will have to build up case law relating to this new concept of "desirable activity" and we cannot be sure precisely where that will lead. There is also a danger that it may be applied unevenly.
	However, a half-full cup seems preferable to an empty one, and I am very grateful to the Minister for amending Clause 1 by explicitly extending its terms to include breaches of statutory duty. I am particularly grateful for her comments on the new Clause 2. It was designed to clarify the law, not to change it. The intention, which I share with the Minister, is to change perceptions, behaviours and outcomes. In the new Clause 2 we are reasserting in statute that to apologise, to say sorry, is something separate and wholly different—legally as well as socially—from an admission of liability. I am particularly pleased that the Minister conceded that point.
	There are three distinct provisions: an apology shall not of itself amount to an admission of negligence or breach of statutory duty; an offer of treatment shall not of itself amount to such an admission; and an offer of other redress shall not of itself amount to such an admission. If this clause is accepted in another place, as I hope it will be, the effect on people's behaviour could be dramatic. So we have done our bit to restore some civility to society. I sincerely hope that the new Clause 2 will give a great boost to rehabilitation. I know that the Minister shares that view.
	The principle of mending the person must lie right at the heart of the civil justice system. I look forward to hearing from the ministerial working group, which the Minister chairs, on a whole range of measures on rehabilitation to put it at the forefront of government policy. We must stop it being a Cinderella service and we must ensure that it is joined up. There is often a postcode lottery, and rehabilitation gets caught up in the crossfire between opposing lawyers. Over 80 per cent of injuries suffered in road traffic accidents are soft tissue injuries that would benefit from immediate, swift and targeted treatment. Sadly, there is all too infrequently the opportunity of delivering that treatment to victims. I hope now, with the Government's announcement today, that a clear signal is sent to everyone that rehabilitation is a good thing, no "ifs" and no "buts".
	I make no further comment about Part 2 except that I hope that the Government's wish to see regulation in place by October will be fulfilled. We need a system of effective regulation and a regulator who possesses impartiality, independence and integrity. I know that the Minister shares that view. She is aware of my enthusiasm for the FSA model of regulation, and I know that she is still considering that aspect. In closing, I re-emphasise my hope—not just my hope—that this Bill is just part of a great interlocking jigsaw of measures that will kick the so-called compensation culture into touch for good. What an achievement that would be.

Lord Goodhart: My Lords, I add my thanks to those of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral. When this Bill came to your Lordships' House, it certainly appeared to me and, I believe, to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, that Part 2 contained a number of fairly serious defects. They were not defects of principle—we have always supported the principle that claims management firms should be brought under regulation—but defects of detail. That being so, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and I put forward a number of what I believe were constructive amendments and we are both—I am speaking for myself in saying that I am—extremely grateful to the noble Baroness for having listened and for having brought about changes in the Bill. Part 2 has now been both changed and improved to an unusual degree, and it is now a very much better Bill than it was when it was brought forward. The objections raised by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee have also been met to a large extent.
	As for Part 1, I remain dubious as to whether Clause 1 will do more good than harm. It presents a real risk of causing serious problems. However, I am pleased that the Government have accepted Clause 2, and I hope that one consequence will be that insurance companies will drop their current practice of insisting that, in the case of road accidents, people who they insure should never apologise.
	Overall, I welcome the fact that this Bill will now go on to the other place. We do not expect to see it back again unless the Government come up, during the course of its proceedings elsewhere, with amendments that they feel it is necessary to include. That is unlikely; so we wish the Bill bon voyage.
	On Question, Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

European Council: 23-24 March 2006

Lord Triesman: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement made in another place by the Foreign Secretary, the right honourable Jack Straw. The Statement is as follows:
	"With permission, Mr Speaker, I should like to make a Statement about the European Council which took place in Brussels last Thursday and Friday. As the House is aware, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister normally makes the post-Council Statement to the House. I have been asked to convey his apologies. He is on an official visit to Australia and New Zealand.
	"The Hampton Court informal summit in October, during our presidency, set the framework for this spring Council in Brussels. The economic challenges for many, though not all, member states of the Union are severe. Despite significant progress since the Lisbon agenda was launched, there are still around 20 million out of work. In some states, in contrast to the United Kingdom, unemployment is around 10 per cent, and almost one in five young people is without a job.
	"The British Government know that there is only one way to get Europe back to work and to deliver social justice in a global economy. We base this not on theory, but on solid evidence. As my right honourable friend the Chancellor pointed out in his Budget speech, in 1996 we had the lowest income per head of all G7 countries. Today, we are second only to the United States. We have grown more quickly, created more jobs and provided more social benefits than most other member states. We have done so by liberalising markets, by increasing our competitiveness and by investing in the future, including in our public services. The European response to globalisation must emphatically not be a return to old-fashioned protectionism by another name.
	"Specific elements of the Hampton Court agenda were energy, research and development, and universities. First, energy: the case for a more liberal energy market is overwhelming. Gas and electricity prices in the period 1996 to 2004 here in the United Kingdom fell much faster than they had done in EU states which have kept their energy markets closed. So consumers in those countries will gain from a functioning internal market, and so will consumers in this country. We currently do not have access to the gas we would have in a more sensitised market. So one of the first achievements of the Lisbon agenda back in 2003 was the decision to liberalise energy markets by 2007. Last week, the European Council reaffirmed that timetable.
	"Completion of the internal market is one of four elements in a new approach to European energy policy. At the summit we agreed the programme relating to the other three areas, too: to intensify diversification of supply; to promote environmental sustainability; and, by the next European Council, to develop a strategy for dealing with countries outside the EU. The Council asked the Commission to present a strategic energy review on a regular basis, starting in 2007.
	"Next, research and development: rising economies, such as China and India, are investing heavily in science and technology. The way for Europe to compete is to be ahead of them, and to lead the knowledge economy rather than protecting old and uncompetitive industries. So the summit agreed the establishment of a European research council. This body will be run by scientists and its purpose will be to promote excellence in European research. We would expect universities and research communities in Britain to benefit.
	"And linked to that is the third area: increased investment in universities, where currently only two of the top 20 universities in the world are European—both, I should say, in the United Kingdom. The European Union has to produce enough graduates of the right calibre, and to improve links between business and universities, if we are going to open up and prosper in new global markets.
	"In addition to the Hampton Court agenda, the British presidency had taken forward valuable work on better regulation and on the services directive. There was further progress on both these areas at the Council.
	"The summit tasked the Commission to report by the end of 2006 on measurable EU targets for removing administrative burdens on business, and particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as to press ahead with the reforms undertaken during our presidency: more simplification of existing EU legislation, further withdrawal of unnecessary or outdated legislation, and more effective use of impact assessments.
	"The summit also agreed a way forward on the services directive. This directive will be of great assistance to British service companies and to opening up Europe properly to a single market in services. Let me be plain. It is not everything we wanted, but a year ago some European leaders were declaring the directive dead and buried. It is not. It will represent a significant advance in the process of making Europe globally competitive.
	"It is customary that the spring European Council concentrates largely on the economic agenda of the European Union. However, all member states shared a deep concern about the recent elections in Belarus. We agreed a statement which condemned the actions of the Belarus authorities in arresting peaceful demonstrators early on the morning of Friday 24 March. We also restated our view, based on the assessment by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, that the elections were fundamentally flawed.
	"The European Union is now deciding on restrictive measures that it will take with respect to the Belarus authorities. President Lukashenko did not escape responsibility. The European Union applauds those who stood up for democracy against the odds and is determined to support civil society and the Belarusian people.
	"The situation in Belarus stands in stark contrast to the situation in neighbouring Ukraine. The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe said that yesterday's elections there,
	'enabled voters to make informed choices between distinct alternatives and to freely and fairly express their will',
	and that they therefore,
	'further consolidated the breakthrough in the conduct of a democratic election process'.
	This is a testament to the remarkable progress made in Ukraine since the orange revolution of 2004.
	"Finally, as I am on my feet on European Business, the House will wish to be aware that earlier today I issued a Written Ministerial Statement in respect of the successful conclusion of the Gibraltar constitutional reform negotiations on 17 March. The new constitution, which will be put before the people of Gibraltar in a referendum, strengthens the links between Gibraltar and the United Kingdom, and thoroughly modernises the relationship between us, which I hope will be as welcome to the people of Gibraltar as it will to the United Kingdom.
	"Last week's summit was a further step towards a more outward-looking European Union that delivers concrete benefits to its citizens. There is still a long way to go. The Government are in no doubt that Britain's best interests lie in a European Union that is open to the world, competitive and confident. We will continue to pursue that agenda vigorously. I commend this Statement to the House".
	My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for repeating this fairly detailed Statement. After the rumpus at the summit about language, perhaps I should make it clear that I shall respond in English and not in French—I say that without apology. We welcome the comment at the end of the Statement about Gibraltar. That is very good news, and certainly shows progress.
	As to the main body of the summit, the presidential conclusions asserted that the Lisbon strategy is being relaunched again—and again and again. Looking at the language in the conclusions of the presidency, one cannot help feeling that the lesson has not really been learnt by all governments—maybe not by any EU government—that planning for growth top down by more and more hopeful strategies of this kind is a hopeless cause. Economic growth and a "dynamic environment"—to take another phrase from the presidency conclusions—come from deregulation, more competition and light taxation. Those are the sort of things that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is now in the habit of pointing out once a week. He is absolutely right to do so.
	Of course, we are totally in favour of increased competition throughout Europe, but is it not now, sadly, clear that some governments are very near the limits of the powers that they are prepared to surrender to higher pan-European or EU-wide authority? One points to the example of the Spanish resistance to the takeover of Endesa, the French resistance—to the fury of Mr Berlusconi and the Italians—to the takeover of Suez by Enel, the Luxembourg and French resistance to the merging of Arcelor, their global steel giant, and, in effect, the block—it is very nearly a block—on further progress with the services directive.
	The tendency for a return to some degree of economic nationalism seems to be expressed no more vividly than when it comes to the attempts by the European Union to develop a common energy policy. Of course, that has been a virtual fiasco. All that has emerged from the summit, as we have heard from the Statement, is a strategic energy review, which is a poor outcome for such high-flown hopes. Is not practical co-operation in Europe, which is necessary in our region on energy matters, all covered very thoroughly already by the International Energy Agency? Everything to do with the stockholding of oil, the storage facilities for gas, the common approaches to safety and the regulation of nuclear facilities is covered by the IEA and has been for many years. I once had the honour of chairing that organisation, so I can confirm that.
	Secondly, governments are reluctant to cede strategic power in areas as sensitive politically as daily supplies of gas, electricity, light, warmth, transport, gasoline, petrol supplies and so on for the very simple reason that failure or interruption in any of those areas can involve an instant thumbs-down from the voters, who naturally want people close by their own governments to be held to account rather than to be told that it is all the fault of some more remote authority.
	I would like to have heard in the Statement much more about the United Kingdom. Should the UK not be very careful and steer clear of the José Manuel Barroso plan for closer EU-Russian co-operation on energy links and gas supplies? The other day, we learnt from bitter experience that when the going gets tight, particularly in gas markets, the continental monopolies—which we hope will be replaced by competition, but that is only a hope—with a certain amount of political pushing and shoving, make their markets the priority for Russian gas, rather than ours. Besides, in the longer term all the energy planning, including the Government's own planning, forecasts that in a few decades the UK will not rely on Russian gas—we will have other sources—whereas, by 2030, France will rely on Russian gas to the extent of 30 per cent, Germany by about 80 per cent and Austria by 95 per cent.
	In short, do we not have a totally different pattern of energy needs evolving in the future compared with large parts of continental Europe? We must maintain the freedom to make our own arrangements and to maintain our own patterns of diversity; we must not be locked into some new bloc ambitions for a Europe-wide energy policy.
	As for the services directive, which I have already mentioned, what progress was made? The Statement talks about a way forward, but what is the way forward? The conclusions of the presidency say that,
	"the internal market of services has to be fully operational while preserving the European social model".
	Those two things are incompatible, as we have all discovered. So what is going to give if there is to be progress—as there should be and as undertakings have been given that there should be—on the realisation and fulfilment of the services directive?
	We are bound to be disappointed that there is no further word on the constitution, whether it is dead or about to be replaced, or whether Ministers, including British Ministers, are putting forward alternatives. Have they put forward any alternatives? I do not know. Certainly other countries are busy proposing all kinds of arrangements to replace the old ones or to carry forward the governance of Europe by different means. We would very much have liked to have seen signs of more vigorous proposals by our own Ministers and the Foreign Office about how we see the governance of Europe in the future and how we want it to be moving in a more fruitful direction than it is going at present.
	I would also have liked to hear a little more—although I realise that this was mostly an economics-focused summit—about the failed Iran diplomacy and where we go next in that frightening scenario. It would have been useful to hear more how the EU is going to handle Hamas, which is about to take government, and the funding dilemma there. How and to what point do we support it if it continues with its present propositions and stance?
	One cannot avoid the conclusion that much of this summit is sadly out of touch with the great issues that the European people and the world now face. It would have been good to see our Ministers take a more forward, creative and imaginative position on how Europe should now move. There is an overwhelming sense that in Europe we are allowing things to drift away from us, while the Prime Minister says that they are going our way—they are not. We would like to have seen Ministers being more vigorous and we feel that once again they have failed on this front.

Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, we on these Benches recognise that this was an informal summit with, primarily, an economic agenda; therefore, we will focus primarily on the economic agenda. On energy policy, I certainly defer to the noble Lord, Lord Howell, as he is a much greater expert than I am. However, I would say that the essence of any European energy policy must be a more coherent approach towards Russia. Sadly, there does not appear to be any strong reference in the communiqué, so far as I can see, about a more coherent policy towards Russia. That is also highly relevant to our reaction to what is happening in Belarus. Russian influence is clearly part of the key to what happens in that poor benighted country.
	We welcome the progress that has been made with the European research council, so long as the council manages to avoid getting into juste retour questions and being caught up in a new administrative empire in which state-centred university systems reimpose their priorities. The British Government have not been fully engaged in the Bologna process all the way through. It is very important that the Bologna process of increasing co-operation among European universities ends up with a more open system. We hope that the British Government are now fully engaged in that.
	We note the rather puzzling and cool reference in paragraph 25 of the communiqué, in which the European Council notes the significance of the Commission's communication on the European institute of technology. I presume that that means, "We didn't like it very much and we don't agree". We, from these Benches, note that the proposal for the European institute of technology carries within it a number of large potential elephant traps, including the suggestion by British Labour Members of the European Parliament that the proposal should be adapted to fit the building of the European Parliament in Strasbourg so that the European Parliament could continue only to meet in Brussels. I also note the view of my European colleague, Andrew Duff, that the European institute of technology is an excellent idea, provided that it is built in Cambridge. We, on these Benches, think that we need to avoid new institutions and ensure that this is part of the European research council.
	On better regulation, we welcome what is said in the communiqué, but we wish that the British Government would admit that we have also contributed our fair share to over-regulation in the European Union. I recall that in the Dutch referendum much fun was made by the antis of the new European zoo regulation, pushed by the British Government on to our colleagues because the British animal welfare lobby wished us to have it. I hope that, as the services directive moves through to implementation, we will maintain pressure to pursue our goals.
	Let me also ask about the odd declaration on the European pact for gender equality, with its reference to an annual report on equality between women and men. What does that imply? How do the British Government see that as contributing to further European integration? Does it also imply a new agency for gender equality? Are the British Government entirely happy with what is moving forward in that direction?
	Gibraltar and the Crown territories are also included in the directive. The Minister will be aware that many of us on these Benches have large questions to ask about the future relationship between the United Kingdom and the Crown territories in Europe. We notice again that relations with Gibraltar have been defined in a different way from relations with the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey. We are not entirely sure that it is possible to sustain the degree of ambiguity which the United Kingdom now has in relations with these different European Crown territories—in relation to the geographical extent of British legislation as it applies to them on some issues and not on others, and the different relations that each of them now has with the European Union.
	I have two specific questions here. First, can we be assured that there will be proper parliamentary scrutiny and debate of the new Gibraltar constitutional treaty? Secondly, may we press for a sessional committee to examine the future relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Crown territories? Every time I have asked about this, I am referred back to the Kilbrandon commission of 1974, which produced a short and deeply ambiguous paper on the relationship. That is not enough.
	Lastly, I simply chide the Government about the style of the opening paragraphs of this announcement. I wish Ministers could avoid a little bit of the Thatcherite triumphalism which has entered into British speeches towards the European continent. Yes, of course we are very glad that the British economy has grown more rapidly than the continental economy—although some of us wish that our public transport system was as good as that of the French, the Germans or the Dutch. Not everything in Britain is necessarily always better than things on the Continent. If we wish to sustain British leadership in the European Union and to contribute towards a more constructive debate across Europe about the future of Europe, it would be better if we preached a little less. We are, after all, halfway through the period of reflection agreed to after the failure of the French and Dutch referenda. Perhaps British Ministers might like to talk rather more about the future of Europe and a little less about how much better Britain is than our EU colleagues.

Lord Triesman: My Lords, a significant number of issues have been raised and there is only a brief moment to reply to them as best I can. I will also do so in English, which I note is the lingua franca of the European Community.
	The Lisbon process, as the noble Lord, Lord Howell, said, has been subject to a number of rebirths. Some of the ideas involved in liberalising the economies of Europe do not take root instantly—the arguments have to be repeated and people have to be brought to it by a process of persuasion. I have no doubt that we will have to continue with that, although I think that this meeting has helped us a little further along the route.
	Perhaps I may say to both noble Lords that regulation is an area in which I think we have a reasonable story to tell—one that is not triumphalist. It is certainly true that we have tried to ensure that we have more intelligent regulation. We have urged on the spring Council that by the end of 2006 there should be measurable targets for removing administrative burdens on business. We want to look closely at the scope for doing still more. We want a rolling plan, with simplification, withdrawals and impact assessments. We must be "thinking small first", to use the terminology, because we are concerned about the smaller and medium-sized enterprises starting up. I would just say to noble Lords, if they expect everybody to immediately warm to those themes, that I suspect that those themes, too, will need a good deal of gentle—and sometimes forceful—reiteration before they take full hold.
	The noble Lord, Lord Howell, talked about economic protectionism. We have seen something of a resurgence of it, which I think is unhelpful. Open, independently regulated markets are more competitive markets. They are the best recipe for sustained economic growth anywhere in the world and for ensuring that the United Kingdom takes its role and benefits from that growth. It will not be a fortress Europe. The reality is that if the walls are kept up, jobs are kept out. We have argued strongly that that cannot happen.
	On energy, it is bound to be the case that there is a good deal of co-operation at present with the Russian Federation as a major source of energy supplies. Energy security and energy supplies will be the central theme of the next G8 conference. It has to be a thoughtful discussion in which the whole of the European Union is involved.
	Both noble Lords posed questions on the services directive. In the short time available, I can respond only in a sentence. There has been some movement, although by no means all the movement that we would have desired. But we expect a draft to come out of the next process, which will be a start for further discussions to carry forward the liberalisation of the services area.
	I am a little relieved that there has been little discussion of the constitutional alternatives. Some may say that that is a limitation. A summit directed towards economics was perhaps inevitable. But these economic issues require very concerted attention. I suspect that another round of what would or would not work in a constitution would not have done the job that was necessary.
	I have little comment to make on Iran or the Middle East peace process. I know that those issues were discussed in the fringes. However, the focus of the main conference has been the economy, as noble Lords said.
	The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, raised the issues of the European research council and the European institute of technology. I do not think that we have been disengaged from the Bologna process. As regards the research council, we want to see a European equivalent of the American National Science Foundation. A scientifically led governing council was established last July and is independent of the Commission so that it gains real credibility, adding value by providing scientists with much-needed extra funds for research. On the European institute of technology, when the word "university" arises, the temptation is always to gravitate to the question of where the bricks and mortar will be. This will not be about bricks and mortar. It will be about a concerted effort and about building and co-ordinating networks and liaison between business and higher education. That is no small task. It has been tried before, as I know full well. None the less, in my judgment it is a task well worth undertaking.
	I thank both noble Lords for what they said about Gibraltar. A longer reply is needed than I have time to give now. I undertake to provide it.
	Finally, I am not hot on triumphalism. However, if some things are going well—and compared with many others our economy is going well; those are the raw facts based on the real data—I do not think that it is bad for us in the UK occasionally to claim a little bit of success where that is entitled.

Lord Brittan of Spennithorne: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the progress that has been made with regard to the services directive is the broad emergence at the European Council of support for the compromise reached in the European Parliament? While far from perfect, and not going nearly as far as one would wish, it enables a directive to be agreed which achieves considerable liberalisation in this vital sector. The right course is to make sure that the European Parliament and Ministers reach a final agreement which goes no step backwards and a little further forward in that direction.
	With regard to the protectionist tendencies which have come to the fore in countries such as France, Spain, Italy and Poland, although the subject was not dwelt on at the European Council, does the Minister agree that the right approach is for all Ministers to give the strongest support and encouragement to the European Commission to use to the full its considerable powers in support of competition policy and the single market to defeat such measures, most of which are plainly in contradiction of legal obligations that the countries have entered into?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, I agree strongly with both underlying propositions the noble Lord, Lord Brittan, has introduced. The services directive proposed by Commissioner Bolkestein in January 2004 requires the co-decision of both the European Parliament and the Council. In February, the European Parliament voted through a package of amendments. The Commission will present a revised proposal on these areas at the Graz informal meeting on 20 and 21 April. Subject to further discussions, the Austrian presidency will consider whether to press that. We have the foundations of a discussion. It should not slip backwards. That is the point with which I agree most strongly. There are provisions which will make it easier for firms to set up businesses in another state. Barriers are still left, covering such aspects as the minimum distance between opticians and other finer detailed and not particularly intelligent formulations that have existed in the past. Those can all potentially be changed by the proposals.
	I also agree strongly on the points about protectionism. The reality is that we are a fairly open society. We share many of our major companies and supplies with other Europeans and, indeed, with countries from further afield. Our open markets have delivered better prices. I believe that a better market in a general sense will deliver still better markets for everyone across Europe. In turn, we own a great deal overseas. I do not think that that has ever been to the disbenefit of those countries in which our companies trade and do so very effectively. There are legal barriers to this protectionism. I believe that they will have to be considered if the protectionism becomes a still more dominant theme in some people's thinking.

Lord Radice: My Lords, there are many fine words in the presidency conclusion. However, is my noble friend confident that last week's European Council will rescue the so-called Lisbon strategy from failure? That is the issue so far. Can he assure the House that an open and robust system of national comparisons which highlights the successes and failures of national economies will be put into place? Does he think that member states will acquire the good sense to learn from one another's best practice in competitiveness, openness and deregulation, rather than indulging in self-defeating protectionism, as they have in the recent past?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, I agree that protectionism is plainly self-defeating. It distorts and will destroy markets if it is allowed to take root. The Commission relaunch of the Lisbon strategy in 2005 started with a renewed focus on jobs and growth, as noble Lords will know. Member states were required to provide national reform programmes identifying key areas for reform at national level. Some have done so with some vigour and some have not. It is plain that if we are to improve labour market performance, to move more rapidly in research and development and in competition, including in services and energy, and to reduce the burden of EU regulation, the successful creation of national reform programmes is a vital building block. If I am asked whether I think that everyone will step up and do that as rapidly, vigorously or successfully as necessary, the answer is similar to the response that I gave to the first two interventions: some will do so more successfully than others. We should urge everyone to do so successfully, but we should make sure that we do so successfully. That is why those forms of liberalisation must remain absolutely at the centre of the policies for which we argue for the economy of the new Europe.

Lord Dahrendorf: My Lords, perhaps I may press the Minister even further on the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Brittan. Some of us are sceptical about Lisbon for two reasons. One is that many of the proposals in the Lisbon agenda are outside the powers of the European Union as it stands today, so the agenda was to some extent bound to remain paper rather than fact. It is very different from the single market proposals. The other is that policies and policy cultures in different European countries differ. Lisbon has never taken sufficient account of those rather fundamental differences.
	Having said that, the problem now seems to be the truly serious issue of protectionism. I wonder whether it is good enough to rely on friendly intergovernmental talks when it comes to extremely serious developments. I shall not return to the services directive, but the directive that will emerge will at any rate not do the crucial thing: recognise the conditions obtaining in the country from which services or those who deliver services come. On energy policy, quite a few participants in last week's meeting declared ahead of time that they do not intend to give any further powers to Europe in that field.
	I find what happens in the Polish banking system extremely serious. It is extremely serious not only because of economic nationalism but because of the extraordinary position in which the governor of the Bank of Poland, who is one of the most distinguished and, I believe, important figures in post-communist Poland, is placed.
	Even bilateralism of the kind practised in the pipeline agreement between Germany and Russia, which is trying to avoid members of the European Union—in other words, having a pipeline not going through Poland or Lithuania—shows to me that there is a truly serious tendency that you can call protectionism or economic nationalism. Should not that be brought out into the open? In so far as solutions are possible, is not the noble Lord, Lord Brittan, entirely right when he points to the powers that the Commission has in many of those areas? Should it not be encouraged to use those powers?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, I am sorry if I did not answer the point clearly enough the first time. I am quite sure that the Commission should use those powers. The reality is that two major steps are required. One is the use of all the powers to ensure that there is a proper, open and reformed market. The second is that there should be serious attempts to evaluate and produce effective evaluation methodology of the general progress of the Lisbon criteria, so that we can check in a serious way whether they are being met.
	I do not know there is a great deal that I can add to the general points that I have already made about energy policy. European leaders have agreed that we must focus on security of supply in completing the single market, improving competitiveness and diversifying sources of energy, so that there is more energy efficiency and a more coherent external strategy. That will be a very difficult discussion. The G8 discussion this year will be a vital part of that, under the Russian presidency. What is certain is that we cannot leave matters as they are without pressing that discussion to a more effective conclusion. The matter will not stay in a neutral state, if I may put it that way, without being moved to a better resolution.

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: My Lords, obtaining comparable numbers of students to those in European universities has been a central plank of the Government's argument for expanding the cohort of our young in higher education to 50 per cent—but in circumstances where, as the Statement says, no continental university in the EU is in the top 20 in the world. Are the Government minded to transfer some of those scarce resources from encouraging weak students to try non-rigorous subjects to reinforcing the universities that we have that are capable of competing globally?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, I fear that I do not share the hypothesis that lies behind that question. We have a considerable variety of higher education institutions, which cater for very different markets. There is no evidence that the key factors that produce world-leading higher education institutions draw off resource from the very best and distribute them around some of the other institutions that are doing a different kind of job. The concentration of research funding on its own demonstrates the degree to which some of our leading institutions are absolutely in the forefront of what can be achieved. We have a real task in Europe to ensure that we have more institutions in those areas. The critical thing will be attracting and retaining staff who are right at the leading edges of the disciplines in which we want to progress.

Lord Hannay of Chiswick: My Lords, on the question of economic patriotism, to which I would refer as patriotic Luddism, will the noble Lord take clearly a point that he answered reasonably satisfactorily? If the Commission is to go into battle on behalf of the single market—as it should, if any member state transgresses—it needs people to speak up on its behalf, not to be left to take the sort of flak that will inevitably be thrown at it by the country or countries that it argues have transgressed European law. I hope that he will take that point and that the Government will speak up.
	On energy policy, the argument about whether we in Britain should depend more or less on Russia is rather short-sighted. Frankly, if the Russians are to be unreliable suppliers to our main export markets in continental Europe, that will be extremely bad news for us. It will also be bad news for us in so far as we depend from time to time—in recent months, quite a bit—on supplies of gas that come through continental Europe. Will future dialogue with Russia be based very firmly on pressing the Russians to ratify the Energy Charter, which they signed with the European Union some years ago but which they have never ratified and which, if ratified by them and implemented—two quite big "ifs", I suspect—would provide many of the conditions that are most important if Russia is to be regarded as a useful and reliable supplier?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, we have an obligation to speak up vigorously. We have been given something of a lead by Senhor Barroso, who said:
	"We do not need any national champions, what we need are world champions based in Europe".
	That is an argument that we could all carry from here to all those who need to hear it, who are trying to place restrictions on access to their markets or operation in their markets. That is an obligation on the Commission. We share the view that the Commission has a crucial role.
	It will be of the greatest importance that the Energy Charter is ratified by Russia—I agree with the point made by the noble Lord. Although we have seen the Russian Federation denying gas supplies to one of its neighbours, generally speaking, the supply through the rest of Europe has been very reliable. That is a matter of fact. The response to the one occasion on which the Russian Federation interrupted the gas supply from everyone else in the gas market suggested that that was not a wise step to have taken. It created a considerable storm. That itself is now due to be a feature of the G8 conference this year.

Lord Harrison: My Lords, will the Minister say a little more about the discussion on small businesses? I understood that the purpose of the summit was to discuss small businesses further. Will he confirm that the discussion was not confined to the sort of generalisations that are commonly made about the business of small businesses and that there was forensic examination of some of the existing legislation? I have in mind the late payments directive. Was that discussed, and was it considered to be successful? Were there discussions about the general approach to the establishment of the single market, which, for many of us, has too often been concerned with creating a market for big businesses when it should of course also have policies to help small businesses participate in an ever-growing single European market?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, a great deal of the discussion on the interests of small businesses centred on regulation and the number of directives that have been enacted. Plainly, regulation is more burdensome for smaller businesses than it is for larger ones; it takes up a larger proportion of the resources available to them which they would usually put into their entrepreneurship.
	The focus has moved—I believe as a result of the Hampton Court discussions—to ensuring that there are agreements on eliminating some of the barriers or additional costs on small businesses and that the regulations are subject to proper impact assessments so that small businesses are not inadvertently caught by the extent of regulation. The focus is now on the delivery of that agenda. I remind noble Lords that that agenda was agreed at Hampton Court and developed with some effect in the most recent discussion. As we have learnt, however—indeed, this has come up in your Lordships' House throughout this brief discussion—we will have to continue to press it. I do not believe that the ogre of over-regulation goes away quickly.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, may I press the Minister on the question asked by my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford about whether the Council made any progress on the future of the European constitution? I refer to the fact that the Statement makes so bold as to criticise the lack of democratic authority of the new regime in Belarus. Will the Minister say something about the creeping EU constitution, which also lacks democratic support? He admitted himself in a Written Answer on 11 January that the Fundamental Rights Agency and the European Charter of Fundamental Rights are proceeding in a legal vacuum. I do not know whether the Government noticed Commission President Barroso's answer to Mr Daniel Hannan MEP a week ago—reply no. E-0429/06—in which Mr Barroso brazenly stated that the legal basis for the European External Action Service is article III-296(3) of the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe, which does not exist. Mr Barroso gave similarly implausible justifications for the European Defence Agency and the European space programme, both of which are also proceeding full steam ahead. How do the Government justify their support for these illegal acts?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, I can only repeat my answer that there was no substantive discussion. We are still in the period of reflection that was identified after the French and Dutch referenda. I can say nothing that will conjure up a discussion on a particular subject in the past few days, however much noble Lords might have wanted it.

Council Tax 2006–07

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement, made earlier today in another place by the Minister for Local Government. The Statement is as follows:
	"With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a Statement on council tax for 2006–07 and the action that the Government propose to take with regard to those local authorities that have set excessive budgets.
	"Figures released today show that, excluding the council tax element of the funding package for the 2012 Olympic Games, the average council tax increase in England for 2006–07 is 4.2 per cent. With the council tax element of the Olympics, it is 4.5 per cent. We have a mature working relationship with the Local Government Association. We have worked with it to examine the pressures that councils will face in the next two years, and how central and local government can manage those pressures. Under the settlement for 2006–07, which the House approved on 6 February, total support for local government, including specific grants, will rise by 4.5 per cent compared with 2005-06. This included an extra £305 million above previous plans.
	"The provisional settlement for 2007–08 will provide an increase of a further 5 per cent, with £508 million above that previously planned. Through introducing multi-year settlements, we are enabling authorities to plan ahead more effectively in budgeting for service delivery. We have now provided a framework for authorities to deliver effective local services over the next two years which takes account of the pressures that authorities face. By 2007–08, government grant for local services will have increased by more than the rate of inflation for 10 years in succession. This represents an increase of 39 per cent in real terms since 1997. It can be compared very favourably with a real-term reduction of 7 per cent in the four years up to 1997. I also remind the House of the council tax support that the Government provide to those on low incomes. Fourteen per cent of total council tax is paid through council tax benefit. Nobody who is unable to pay is made to pay, and we are working to ensure that all who are eligible do claim the benefit. Given our significant extra investment of grant and the continuing scope for efficiency savings, we made it very clear again this year that we expected authorities to budget prudently. It was only with the greatest reluctance, following the 12.9 per cent rise in council tax in 2003–04, that we first made use of our reserve capping powers. However, as we said in our 2005 election manifesto, we will use capping to protect council tax payers from excessive increases. There can be no doubt that the recent more modest increases in council tax could not have occurred without the Government making judicious use of those powers.
	"When we announced the provisional settlement in December, we said that we expected the average increase in council tax in England to be less than 5 per cent for each of the two years 2006–07 and 2007–08. I set that out in a letter to all authorities. Ministers later wrote to those authorities reported to be considering setting increases of above 5 per cent. I also wrote jointly with my right honourable friend the Member for Salford to all police authorities reaffirming the Government's expectations. I am pleased to report that the overwhelming majority of authorities have responded positively to our messages. Most authorities fully recognise the need to minimise the demands that they place on council tax payers. Regrettably, however, there remain a very small number that have set excessive budget and council tax increases. It is for this reason that I am making a Statement to the House today about the action that we propose to take.
	"I should like to remind honourable Members of the provisions of the capping legislation set out in the Local Government Finance Act 1992, as amended by the Local Government Act 1999. In order to determine whether each authority's budgeted expenditure, as defined in the legislation, is excessive, we must consider a comparison of the authority's budget requirement for 2006–07 with that of the previous year. The legislation also allows us to determine other principles such as the level of increases in council tax. This year, the increase in budget requirement for authorities providing education, police and fire services is measured using the alternative notional amounts given in the Limitation of Council Tax and Precepts (Alternative Notional Amounts) Report (England) 2006/07, approved by the House on 6 February. Alternative notional amounts are notional figures used for capping purposes to help give a like-for-like comparison of budget requirements between years. Our view is that authorities' 2006–07 budgets are excessive if they show, first, an increase of more than 6 per cent in their budget requirement compared with 2005-06 and, secondly, if their council tax has increased by more than 5 per cent in the same period.
	"As was the case in 2005–06, a single set of principles has been applied to all authorities. Despite the principles being more stringent than in 2005–06 when authorities' budgets were judged excessive if they showed an increase of more than 6 per cent in budget requirement compared with 2004–05 and if council tax had increased by more than 5.5 per cent, we are proposing to take action against only two unitary authorities this year. That is to be compared with 2004–05 when we took capping action against 14 authorities, and 2005-06, when we took action against nine authorities.
	"The two authorities are Medway Borough Council and York City Council, which have both set excessive budgets according to the principles that I have described. We are writing to these authorities today, informing them of our decision to designate them with a view to capping them in-year and notifying them of the maximum budget that we propose to set for them.
	"The authorities have a statutory right to challenge the proposed caps. They have 21 days in which to do so. If they wish to challenge, we will carefully consider the information that we have required them to send us, along with any other representations that they make, before we take the final decisions.
	"We will then either make an order, to be approved by this House, designating the authorities at the level of the proposed maximum budget, or another level; or withdraw the designation and nominate them instead. Nomination would allow us either to set them notional budgets for 2006–07 for future capping comparisons, or to cap them in advance for 2007–08.
	"Two shire districts—Aylesbury Vale District Council and Wellingborough Borough Council—have also breached the limits. However, as they have done so by very small amounts—only 12p and 9p respectively in terms of band D council tax—we are not proposing to take action against them.
	"We have always made clear our reluctance to take capping action. These are powers of last resort and we would prefer not to have to use them. But the public have a right to be protected from excessive council tax increases.
	"Under our wider 'localism' agenda, we are giving local authorities more freedom over how they deliver their services. However, this must be set within a framework of prudent financial management and value for money.
	"The vast majority of authorities—99 per cent—have responded well to our clear message for council tax in 2006–07. No one would have been happier than me if it had been 100 per cent. However, we remain committed to taking action against those increases which we believe to be excessive".
	My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

Baroness Hanham: My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. I declare an interest as an elected member of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. In 1997, when this Government came to power, council tax, as introduced by the Conservative administration, had been widely seen as being fair and reasonable and was set at an affordable level across the bands. That can hardly be said now.
	Since that time, the Government have presided over an increase in council tax of nearly 90 per cent, while raising the level of grant towards it by just 39 per cent, which has been made clear in the Statement. There has been a significant shift between the amount which is now borne by the tax payers and the grant provided by the Government, which is not made up of government revenues alone, but includes a major contribution from the non-domestic rate payers.
	It is ironic that one of the Government's own number—Sedgefield—which has a Labour district and county council and a fairly well known Labour MP, now has the dubious honour of having the highest council tax in the country—£1,490 at band D. Wandsworth, which is a good Conservative council and is consistently well managed, despite the insatiable demand of the Mayor for London, has, at £648, the lowest charge, which is less than half that of Sedgefield.
	The levy for the Mayor amounts to £289 of Wandsworth's charge, which is within a hair's breadth of being half of the total amount. Most Londoners would say that the Mayor is proving to be very bad value for that sort of money. He has insatiable ambitions for the future, some of which are shared by the Government. I must ask the Minister whether there will be any limit on the amount of precept that he will be allowed to levy.
	Others who will be concerned by the 4 to 5 per cent rises this year are pensioners. On average, they are worse off by £250, and that is without the cushion of the Chancellor's £200 election bung of last year. Could it be that these gifts get handed out only in election years? After that, those who are demonstrably the poorest off under his regime are made worse off. The Chancellor's contempt for pensioners, whether on state or private pensions, is becoming only too apparent. This omission this year is just one more example of that. It seems that the older one gets, the less the Chancellor thinks one needs to have security of income. Perhaps the Minister could tell us why this "one year only" contribution has been dropped.
	The Minister in the other place also reminded us that there is a council tax element of the funding package for the 2012 Olympic Games, which adds about 0.3 per cent to the council tax average increase of 4.2 per cent. Will the Minister explain what the totality of the Olympic Games' burden is to the council tax payer, whether it is capped, and for how long it is envisaged that it will last? Will it last beyond 2012?
	While speaking about averages, the Government insist on issuing figures for average council tax per dwelling. Does the Minister accept that independent commentators, which include the House of Commons Library notes, have denounced that terminology as being inaccurate and unsuitable? They point out that the only fair way to compare council tax, like for like, is to contrast a band D tax with a band D tax. By doing that, it becomes clear that, on average, Conservative councils charge—excluding precepts from fire, police and, where appropriate, the GLA—£81 less a year than Labour councils and £88 less than Liberal Democrat councils. Will the Minister explain why it is that the Government should insist on making comparisons on this dubious basis? Does she not accept that in different local authority areas the mix of dwellings by value may be significantly different, one from another?
	It is remarkable that 50 per cent of the Statement has been on capping just two hapless councils which have fallen under the Government's capping procedures. By how much have they breached the limit? How much is that in monetary terms? It seems clear that with the Government's withdrawal of the revaluation process this year, their commitment to increasing the number of council tax bands and the reviews that are now being undertaken by Sir Michael Lyons and the Miliband team, any lessening of the burden of council tax is improbable. Sadly, property is becoming the milch cow of this Government.
	It is time that the Government looked to decrease the burden on council tax payers, stopped redistributing grant from one area of the country to the other, lessened the burden on income-restricted pensioners, abandoned their excessive folly of regionalisation and started to put the council tax payer first.

Baroness Scott of Needham Market: My Lords, the one fact on which I have seen general agreement today is that council tax is set this year to rise by twice the level of inflation to 4.5 per cent, with average council tax now more than £1,056 per year. All afternoon I have watched e-mail traffic as press releases fly around. Each of the political parties interprets the figures in a slightly different way and uses a different way of measuring in order to make its case.
	I thought that perhaps I would engage in a non-party political point. This year, if you take all local authorities which are in single-party control and look at this year's increase, you will see a difference of 0.3 per cent in the increases proposed by the three parties. The higher increases are in coalitions where there are large numbers of independent councillors. That is an interesting argument in view of the claims that everyone is making for their political party. There are two fundamental problems. We have a system of local government finance which is now virtually impossible to understand, is subject to the worse kind of government micromanagement and interference, and is unresponsive to local needs and situations.
	Today, I spoke to people involved in local government in York. By all the external verification and assessment available, York is a highly efficient council. Last year, it saved £4.7 million in efficiencies. It has the lowest council tax level outside the south-east and the lowest expenditure per head of any council. In the new grant formula, created by the Government this year, it was agreed that York city should receive an extra £1.4 million. There was agreement from the Government that it needed that money. However, because of the technical damping mechanism, York has not received that money, and because it has not received it, it is now over the Government's capping limit. This Government were opposed to crude capping of this sort, and then they brought it back. Will the Minister tell the House today that if the Lyons review states that this mechanism must be scrapped, the Government will do as he says and return to a more sensible and equitable system?
	The second problem is that council tax is unfair and unrelated to ability to pay. The poorest 10 per cent of pensioners are now paying one-tenth of their income in council tax. All people on low and fixed incomes are facing the same problem. It is all right for the Government to talk about benefits, but we all know that the take-up rate on benefits is poor, particularly with pensioners, and benefits are unnecessarily bureaucratic. Would it not make sense to have a tax related to ability to pay in the first place? Fiddling around with capping on small percentage increases will do nothing to help pensioners in this position. Also, this year they will not be getting the £200 pre-election bribe—or rebate, as it was called.
	Once again, we are seeing government intervention in areas where the percentage may be large, but the amounts are small. I am pleased that the Government have learnt the lesson of last year and have decided not to cap the tiny increases in Aylesbury Vale and Wellingborough. However, can the Minister say by how much council tax bills will be reduced in other areas after the enormous cost of rebilling is taken into account? I also ask the same question as the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, about costs.
	Five out of the seven candidates for capping this year are emergency services. It is extraordinary to us that this Government believe that it is right to spend millions of pounds on ID cards and that emergency services on the ground should be restricted in this way. I am sorry that this year we are once again in this position. This is a rotten tax. We should scrap it, not cap it.

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, it was interesting to have those responses from the noble Baronesses. They gave clear accounts of how they feel we have managed this year's council tax increases. I am sorry that they were not more welcoming considering that a negotiation has been successfully worked through in a mature fashion with the Local Government Association, with which we work closely, not least to understand, analyse and respond to the inevitable demographic pressures that local councils are facing. We understand that there are serious pressures. We arrived at what has been regarded as a successful settlement. The 39 per cent increase over funding is after inflation since 1997, and we are proud that we have been able to do that.
	I turn to the specific questions raised. I shall take the issue of pensioners first. That is one of the most important points raised this afternoon. I take very seriously the points that the noble Baronesses made. Nothing would give us more pleasure than if there were a 100 per cent take-up of council tax benefit. Fourteen per cent of council tax is funded through council tax benefit. We are conscious that the take-up is not good enough and that we need to do everything that we can to simplify access and the system. We are doing that with the Pension Service. It is going to great lengths to ring people who, it thinks, are not claiming benefits to which they are entitled and is inviting them to come forward so that it can help them access that benefit. We can go further than that, and I think we must. However, I dispute the idea that we have shown contempt for pensioners. That is very strong language. We offered £200 last year, for good reasons. We did not make any claim that we would be able to repeat that. It has to be put into the context of what else we have done for pensioners. I tell the noble Baronesses that the average pensioner household will be around £1,350 per year better off—£26 per week—in 2006–07 because of the tax and benefit changes than they would have been in 1997. I shall not list all the things that we have done—from fuel payments to free television licences and free eye tests—but the Budget Statement prefigured what more we will do; that is, free transport from 2008. It has been a serious commitment and it will continue to be so.
	Another question raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, concerned London, the precept and the bill for the Olympics. The precept was 13.3 per cent, but the point about the GLA is that it did not breach the principle of having a budget requirement of more than 6 per cent, which is why it has not been capped. The noble Baroness will know that that works out at about £20 per year in London for the Olympics. Her questions were about where the boundaries for council tax payers will be, whether the costs will overrun and how much more taxpayers will have to pay. The total estimated funding already includes a contingency of about £500 million. We are determined to ensure that the calls on public funding remain within the overall agreed funding package. We have set £625 million as the figure for the London council tax payer to contribute, and it could be less. Any further call on the council would need to be agreed between the Government and the Mayor of London at the time and, in turn, by the London Assembly. We have sent a firm message that we will take action against excessive increases in council tax on that point.

Baroness Hanham: My Lords, as I understood her, the Minister responded that the precept for the Olympic Games is on London ratepayers. However, from the Statement made by Mr Woolas, it seems that there is a general impost across the whole of the country. We ought to make it clear that it is just London council tax payers who are paying for the Olympic Games. I think there is a mistake in his Statement.

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, it is true that it is just London taxpayers, because the benefits will go to London. The figure of 4.5 per cent is spread out across the country to illustrate that.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, asked about capping of what she described as "two hapless councils". We are pleased that there are only two and no more. Having set principles within a capping regime, as we are required to do, we have to apply them. It is unfortunate that the two councils have fallen into that category. They will be able to challenge the decision. They have that right. Indeed, they may choose to challenge the billing cost. They are free to do that. Nevertheless, they have fallen outwith the regulations.
	Both noble Baronesses ask me what budget reductions would be required. In Medway, it would be £382,000 and in York, it would be £285,000. Those are the figures that we are talking about. The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, asked me about Lyons and, in particular, whether we could look forward to the scrapping of the capping system after Sir Michael's report. Would that I could anticipate what the gentleman will come up with. We shall have to wait and see. It is one of many aspects of the funding regime and the form and functions of local government that he will be looking at, and I am afraid we will have to be patient.
	I believe that I have dealt with the other questions on the Lyons report that were put to me. I take the point on which the noble Baroness concluded. We are obviously keen to keep council tax down, but we believe, and this Statement demonstrates, that this year we have a settlement that is fair and negotiated and that will fully fund the services that are needed. With the LGA, we are looking at many other hard issues about new burdens; for example, adult social services, and so on. We look forward to working with the LGA as we approach CSR07 to make sure that we have as rational, fair and efficient a system as possible.

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: First, my Lords, if the 4.5 per cent is spread out across the country, as the Minister said, what would the London figure be, including the Olympic element, on its own? Secondly, by what average percentage increase has the Mayor of London's precept increased since his first impost upon Londoners?

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I understand that without the Olympic precept, which is, of course, payable only in London, the London increase would have been 2.8 per cent rather than the actual 4.5 per cent London average. I do not have the other figures to hand, but I will write to the noble Lord about that.

Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, we are used to Ministers producing spin, but there are moments, especially today, when I really grieve for the Minister. With a perfectly straight face, she read out paragraph 5 of this Statement. It says:
	"By 2007–08, government grant for local services will have increased by more than the rate of inflation for 10 years in succession".
	During this time, the Government have piled demands, not least recycling, on local authorities. So the two things simply cannot possibly go together.

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I merely stated the facts relating to the 10 years. In terms of recycling, the noble Lord makes an important point. It is one aspect of the new demands on local authorities, for all sorts of reasons that he would know, where there are increased burdens in cost. It is one element on which we are working particularly closely with the Local Government Association to establish where we go in future.

Rural Payments Agency

Lord Bach: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat in the form of a Statement the Answer given by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State to a Question asked in another place earlier this afternoon. The Statement is as follows:
	"In my Written Statement on 16 March, I told the House that the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) had advised me for the first time on 14 March that it would no longer be possible to make the bulk of single payment scheme (SPS) payments by 31 March and that, in the light of this unacceptable situation, a new chief executive would be appointed.
	"I fully understand and share anxieties that these events will cause to the farming community and deeply regret that this unacceptable situation has arisen.
	"I received an initial report from the acting chief executive (Mark Addison) into the situation at the RPA on 21 March.
	"There are substantial problems facing the RPA in getting SPS payments out to farmers, much greater than had previously been reported to Ministers. As I know the House and the farming community would expect, speeding up those payments remains the overwhelming priority of Defra Ministers and the RPA itself. However, it also remains essential that actions taken now in response to these problems are very carefully considered, but are also sure-footed to avoid making them still worse in the future.
	"Mr Addison's report identified some initial steps, which should enable us to speed up payments, without losing sight of the need to properly manage the disbursement of a large sum of public money.
	"The initial steps which I have sanctioned are: focusing resources in the RPA on making the 2005 payments as fast as is legally possible; removing disproportionate checks from the payment authorisation system to speed up the flow of payments once claims have been validated; prioritising work on validation of claims to release the maximum value of payments as quickly as possible, as opposed to the maximum number of individual claims, an action which will mainly benefit historic customers; centralising key mapping work at the most productive office (Reading); reviewing what further steps can be taken to simplify the process so that decisions can be made later this week; strengthening the RPA's capacity in key areas and changing the RPA's structure to streamline command and control.
	"The Minister for Sustainable Farming and Food (Lord Bach) and the RPA acting chief executive have invited senior representatives of the industry to weekly meetings, the first of which took place on 22 March, so that close contact can be maintained with them, and will also be engaging urgently with the banks and other key stakeholders.
	"Central to the success of these steps is the team at RPA. I am confident that with Mark Addison at the helm, we have in place the right people for the job in this next stage. Their work and commitment remain key to delivery. They have worked with absolute dedication throughout often in the face of considerable difficulties. I am sure they will continue to do so".
	My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

Baroness Byford: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for repeating in the form of a Statement the Answer to the urgent Question asked by my honourable friend in another place. These are very disturbing times. I have tried twice to table a topical Question on this subject. I have raised the issue of the Rural Payments Agency with the noble Lord on several occasions. It is quite right that we should take this Statement today.
	I find the Statement disappointing. It indicates where there are problems, but my reading of it does not actually give any answers to those problems. I will put some questions directly to the Minister, which I hope he will be able to answer. The Statement refers to,
	"focusing resources in the RPA".
	What resources are those and how will that be done? It refers to "removing disproportionate checks". Which checks are disproportionate and how will that be done? It refers to "reviewing . . . further steps" to simplify the process and so that,
	"decisions can be made later this week".
	Can that decision be made in time for our debate on Thursday, when we shall at least have a chance to look at the issues more fully? The Statement also refers to,
	"engaging urgently with the banks and other key stakeholders".
	The banking part is key, because so many farmers are finding themselves unable to pay their bills.
	This Statement is long on problems, but short on facts and information. The Secretary of State accepts that there has been total failure and that the situation within the RPA is unacceptable. There are no reassurances, however, as to how this might be resolved, and no timetable is given. Is it just the mapping end that is not completed? How many farms have had their maps agreed and how many are still outstanding? Is it just that the RPA payment system is unable to cope? Is it that the IT system is not up to the job that it has to take on? Or is it that the new mapping exercise does not fit in with the previous maps that were held by many farmers who received historic claims? Considering the delay, will the department consider delaying the date—16 May 2006—by which the new applications for single farm payments are usually made?
	I referred to engaging with banks. I understand that many farmers are at their wits' end and I have referred one case to the Minister. I am very grateful to him for taking it up. We should not, however, be in the position of having to take up individual cases because an agency has totally failed to do what it should do. In engaging with banks, will the Government consider providing an emergency fund where perhaps the banks are not willing or able to extend credit any further? As one tenant farmer said:
	"I am close to my overdraft limit, with the rent to pay on 5 April, and with no single farm payments money to hand".
	I have also contacted the Farm Crisis Network, which records that farmers have been calling it regularly over the past three weeks, very distressed that late payment of their subsidies is causing cash-flow problems. It has a knock-on effect not only on them but on their suppliers and the banks. Many callers are saying that fuel suppliers, feed merchants and others are refusing to allow farmers any more supplies or credit and that some banks are refusing to increase their overdraft facility. I ask the Minister what the Government will do about that and whether the Government will pay interest on the money that is outstanding.
	I understand that the helpline has taken 50-plus cases in the south-west alone. In each of those cases the problems have been exaggerated because of the late payment under the single farm scheme. These cases affect not only the farmers but their families. Not all of the calls in the south-west were received by the helpline itself; many were received directly at the volunteers' homes. They are even looking into a case where a farmer has committed suicide, partly caused, they believe, by the anxiety of this terrible state of late payments.
	I know that in another place some Members have called for the Minister's resignation. No doubt he will consider his own position. He may feel it unfair that he should be the one to be singled out and in the firing line when the responsibility clearly lies with the Secretary of State herself. I have asked some very real questions. I expect answers to those questions. If they are not forthcoming, we will certainly expect them when we debate the matter further on Thursday.

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, when this subject was debated in a Starred Question on, I think, 24 January, it was believed that some of the questioning was actually questioning the very substance of CAP reform. I say now on the record that we have always supported CAP reform. We have been very clear about that. I think that we really need to separate the two issues. Any criticisms which I may now level are certainly not about reform, which is welcome, but about its implementation.
	I too have found no answers in the Statement, but perhaps I did not expect to find any at this stage. If there had been anything more positive to say, the Government would have come forward with their own Statement rather than respond to a Question. However, a number of questions arise now. The first question for farmers who are in really desperate circumstances must continue to be whether the Minister has a more definite timetable in mind. In particular, in answer to a Written Question, it was said that claims would be processed randomly according to the order in which they came in. Has the position changed, and will they be processed in a more orderly way?
	Secondly, the RPA is responsible for nearly £3 billion of payments—£2.9 billion, I think—and it costs £249 million a year to run. Defra has an RPA ownership board and an RPA executive review group, both of which I believe are chaired by a senior Defra official and both of which I presume report regularly to Ministers. How was it that these groups did not spot the problem earlier? I have gone back through all the Written Questions and Answers and the problem clearly arose well before it became apparent to farmers that they were really going to suffer.
	I presume that the Government are maintaining their position on not paying interest because they do not feel that it is appropriate. I note their reason for saying that, which is that the payment window runs until 30 June.
	According to an Answer given to my honourable friend Dr Cable in another place, the number of people employed by the RPA decreased by almost 500 between March 2005 and February 2006. If the RPA was to undertake such enormous changes and it could have foreseen the amount of work that would result, why did it choose that time to cut staff, just when it was so busy? Did the number of RPA vacancies increase substantially during the period of the problem? In other words, how many vacancies is the RPA suffering from?
	Farmers are, of course, in the front line and are having enormous difficulties. Nevertheless, as we learnt from foot and mouth, what critically affects farmers also affects the whole of the wider rural economy. I think we will want to return to that in the debate on Thursday.

Lord Bach: My Lords, I thank both noble Baronesses for their comments and questions. The noble Baroness, Lady Byford, asks what I was saying about resources. One of the initial steps that the new RPA chief executive suggested to us last week, and which we have taken up, was that we should focus more resources in the RPA on making the 2005 payments as fast as is legally possible. The RPA is a large organisation, as we have heard; it has centres all over the country. A lot of resources have already been applied to payment of the subsidy. He is suggesting that more resources should be applied to them from within the RPA. We agree with him.
	At the very last stage before payment it was necessary for there to be six different authorisation processes before payments could be sent. The new chief executive suggested that that number could be decreased to two. That has been implemented at once.
	As for whether we will have more information by the time of our debate on Thursday—I believe that the other place also is debating this issue, on Wednesday—the new chief executive is coming forward later this week to the Secretary of State and me with other proposals. He has, after all, been in position for a total of only 11 days. I hope we will be able to say something about his proposals in those debates, but I cannot guarantee that.
	(13)The noble Baroness asked about the 15 May deadline for farmers to apply under the 2006 scheme. The 2006 scheme literature, including sample forms, is already on the RPA website. Forms pre-populated with data will be distributed shortly. Of course we appreciate that some farmers would wish to have additional certainty on the detail of their entitlements before submitting a claim for next year, but we can see little chance of amending the deadlines which are set in legislation agreed by all EU Agriculture Ministers. But we will see what we can do to deal with the problem that she raises.

Lord Neill of Bladen: My Lords, will the Minister give way?

Lord Bach: No, my Lords, I think I am obliged first to answer questions from the Front Benches. I will of course answer other questions in due course.
	Of course the delays are causing real hardship. We appreciate that very much, which is why we were so disappointed not to receive until 14 March of this year the advice which first told us that these payments would not be met in bulk by the end of March. The advice we have received from the banks so far is that they are not seeing any change in the number of farm business failures and that no otherwise viable business is likely to fail as a result of the timing of payments. On Thursday I will be seeing the banks; I saw them last December; and, in answer to the noble Baroness, I am also seeing the suppliers AIC later this week.
	The noble Baroness asked about who we are focusing on. In practice we are giving priority to those who received payments under the old CAP schemes, which the single payment scheme has replaced. They are the ones for whom cash flow may be an issue, as their annual income is traditionally supplemented by a CAP payment by this time of year. New applicants in 2005—there are many of those—generally have much smaller payments due. These are people who did not apply under the old schemes but who are applying under the new scheme because it is based on land rather than on production.
	As to the noble Baroness's comments about the Secretary of State and myself, we take our responsibilities extremely seriously and I think her remarks were a little cheap.
	In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, I have already mentioned that we are focusing on those for whom cash flow may be a really important issue. We accept that there are a number of those.
	I was asked about a more definite timetable. I want to be cautious. In the past there has probably been too much easy forecasting and not enough solid fact. Until we get the next advice from the new chief executive, I am not prepared to make forecasts about future payments. I can tell the House how much has been paid to date, and at my weekly meetings with the NFU, CLA and the TFA we will regularly let them know what the weekly figures are as they advance. In the past week £60 million of claims were met and in the three and a half weeks before last week £75 million of claims were met. So there was a considerable improvement during the course of the past week.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Miller, will know that a further review is to start immediately to ensure that we get some results in time to affect next year's scheme. We will not allow the remainder of the review to interfere in any way with what we need to do to get the 2005 payments out, which is the absolute essential and our first priority. This review will involve a team of consultants and will focus on getting all the processes right, especially for next year. It is essential that we have a good look at how the RPA works and how it is run. It is a big organisation and that is what the Hunter review will do.
	The precise details of the RPA's actions are for the new chief executive to firm up. We are focusing resources—a priority for medium-sized claims—to maximise the value of the payments, not the actual number of claimants. With regard to disproportionate checks, some did turn out to be either duplicated or of very little value. As I have told the House already, four out of six checks at the payment stage have now been dropped. The noble Baroness asked about RPA staffing. I shall write to her or answer her if she raises these matters in the debate on Thursday.

Baroness Shephard of Northwold: My Lords, the Minister said that he became aware on 14 March this year that payments could not be made on time. I am very surprised by that statement. Is he not aware that, as many as four years ago, warnings were given in the other place about exactly this eventuality arising, not only in the Chamber during the passage of legislation but also in Select Committee? How is it that, four years on, the noble Lord claims that he was surprised by this new knowledge?

Lord Bach: My Lords, it was the noble Baroness's government who set up the introduction of arm's-length delivery agencies as one of the major Civil Service reforms of the 1980s. The RPA is precisely one of those arm's-length delivery agencies—even though it may have been created well after that time, we are dealing with such an agency. This agency's job is to pay out these sums. It is for Ministers to get advice from such agencies and to take action accordingly. All the advice we had from the agency up until Tuesday evening of 14 March was that the bulk of payments would be made by the end of March. Earlier advice from the agency was that we would begin payments in February. That advice was right; we did begin payments of the single payment subsidy on 20 February. The advice on bulk payments was wrong. Ministers first heard about it on 14 March.

Viscount Bledisloe: My Lords, I declare an interest as a farmer who is awaiting this money with ever-increasing impatience and ever-diminishing faith. I thank the Minister for the frankness of his Statement. I am pleased to see that a head has rolled. However, I very much hope that no real question will arise of the noble Lord's departure. I am sure that nobody in the farming community would want to lose a Minister who both listens and cares, and I hope that the noble Lord and his colleagues will take that to heart.
	Does the Minister recognise that these payments are vital to the vast majority of farmers, who are attempting to live on the proceeds of farming and that these delays create intolerable burdens? The noble Lord spoke of anxieties; it is not just anxieties, but burdens and problems. He has not yet answered the questions about interest or compensation. What is the position on that? If a farmer is late with his taxes, he is charged interest. Will the Government treat the tax-paying farmer equally and pay proper interest and, where appropriate, compensation for this inexcusable delay?

Lord Bach: My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount for his kind remarks; I very much appreciate them. I accept the premise of what he says: this is a serious state of affairs for many farmers. That is why we regret so much that this has happened. I am afraid that I cannot offer to pay compensation. The issue of compensation does not arise, as the EU regulations governing the scheme provide for a payment window—as I think noble Lords know—until 30 June. It is not the end of March yet. Farmers have been aware for more than 12 months that payments would not be made until February 2006.

Lord Monro of Langholm: My Lords, I am sad to say it, but this must be one of the most disgraceful Statements ever heard on agriculture in either House. How does the Minister expect farmers to continue to survive when there has been a failure to make their basic payments by the end of March? Maybe not April, maybe not May. I declare an interest as a Scottish farmer. I was paid in January. If Scotland and Wales can do it, why on earth can't England? What were Ministers doing in November, December, January, February and March? Were they actually checking that the cheques were going out? Were they making any effort to see that the crucial payments to farmers were made? They have left agriculture in a parlous state, grossly short of cash that they should have received in this financial year—probably ending on 5 April—and apparently, from what the Minister has said, with very little hope of payment in the next few weeks.

Lord Bach: My Lords, I am surprised that the noble Lord, given his vast experience of public life, should say that this is the worst Statement he has ever heard during his career.

Lord Monro of Langholm: My Lords, it is the most disgraceful Statement.

Lord Bach: I am very grateful for the clarification, my Lords. However, I have to say that I find it hard to believe.
	Our objective for the use of this sizeable sum of public money—some £1.6 billion a year—is to promote a truly sustainable English agriculture industry; in other words, the subsidies paid to farmers for years and years on the basis of production alone constituted a system that should have disappeared a long time ago, if we were to have a properly sustainable farming sector in this country. So I make no apology for our adoption of these measures as a result of the latest CAP reforms. I wish that the noble Lord's government had done something to modernise farming in any way at all while they were in power.
	The system we are using in England is different from the model used in Scotland and Wales. They base their payments on an historic basis alone. In accordance with our hope of achieving a sustainable farming sector, we have a mixed historic and flat-rate system. Indeed, there are rumbles in EU countries that have adopted the historic system alone that they are beginning to wish that they too had a mixed system in place.

Lord Neill of Bladen: My Lords, I declare an interest as one of many thousands of farmers who remain unpaid. For me, the two most startling points in the Statement were the late discovery that the level of chaos in the RPA was such that not until 14 March did it reveal to the Government that it could not comply with the promise, made on many occasions, that the bulk of the payments would be through by the end of March. That is completely extraordinary. The other matter of dismay to the country is that the Minister is not in a position today to give any forecast of when these payments will be made. I accept the integrity of the position he takes: he is not giving us a false forecast. But it is a very desperate position when a Minister cannot say that, "at least by the end of April" or "by the end of May", the payments would all be through the machine. He cannot even say that, which is deplorable.

Lord Bach: My Lords, we too were surprised and shaken to hear for the first time on Tuesday 14 March the news that the bulk of the payments could not be made by the end of March. I share completely what the noble Lord has said about that. I regret that, although I would love to do so, I cannot give the House a date by which all the payments will be made. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to be able to do so from the Dispatch Box today. However, that would be irresponsible of me. We have put the new chief executive in place and, in his first report to the Secretary of State and me last week he said that he wanted more time before he could make a judgment on that crucial figure.
	All I can say to the noble Lord—and it is not much comfort—is that payments are being made as we speak. They certainly have not stopped, but I cannot give him a date by which they will all have been made.

Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, I also declare an interest as a hopeful farmer. The Minister spoke of farmers with cash-flow problems. Surely he is aware that all farmers rely entirely on positive cash flow. Is he further aware of the extraordinary distress caused to my neighbours in Cumbria? I know that the noble Lord is sensitive to criticism, but will he look at the Statement again and accept that its language suggests total indifference to all of us who work in the countryside?

Lord Bach: My Lords, I hope that I am not overly sensitive. Of course I shall look at the Statement again, but it is an answer to an emergency question asked by an honourable Member in another place. We are sensitive to the issues that have arisen. There are considerable problems for many farmers because half the amount will not be paid by the end of March. I repeat what I said earlier: payments are continuing. But I am not prepared to give a date by which those payments will have been completed. I cannot say anything else to the noble Lord at this time.

Lord Carter: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that part of the problem is the complexity of the system adopted for England as opposed to those used in Scotland and Wales? Is £1.6 billion the total cost of the single payment scheme? If so, can the noble Lord give me the cumulative figure of what has been paid out so far? He mentioned a series of figures quite quickly. If there are any further problems, would it be possible to make advance payments to farmers on account of their final payment?

Lord Bach: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. In broad terms, £1.6 billion is the very sizeable sum of public money that will be paid out under the single payment scheme. Let me give the latest figures: at the close of business on Friday last, March 21, the RPA had made payments to 18,507 claimants, which is 15.4 per cent of the total, to a value of over £135 million.

Lord Carter: My Lords, will my noble friend respond to my question on advance payments?

Lord Bach: My Lords, we are not ruling anything out until we hear more from the chief executive, but if advance payments are effectively part payments, there are considerable dangers in doing that. We would have to be satisfied that they would not arise. We would have to make sure that the systems set up to make such payments actually worked. In addition, making part payments might well affect whether the 2006 payments are made on time.

The Countess of Mar: My Lords, does the noble Lord know that the extra payments made to hill farmers are dependent on the single farm payment in the first place? It is now lambing time for hill farmers, who are supposed to be buying supplementary food for their ewes so that they can cope with their lambs, but they are not able to because they cannot get credit from feed companies any more.
	Can the Minister say what will happen to Johnston McNeil? I must say that when I first heard that he had been appointed to the Rural Payments Agency, my heart sank because I had seen how he coped with the demise of our abattoirs. I had a lot to do with that issue at the time. Is he still on full salary? If so, for how much longer will that go on? Has he told the Secretary of State how much he knew about the disastrous state of the agency? Finally, a report in Private Eye stated that immediately after Mr McNeil left the agency the IT system crashed yet again, losing quantities of data. What data have been lost and what effect will that loss have on payments?

Lord Bach: My Lords, I shall respond to the noble Countess in a moment. Earlier I referred to Friday 21 March, but of course it was Friday 24 March.
	Let me just say that Mr McNeil has been removed from office because we needed to strengthen the leadership at the RPA. No decisions have yet been taken on his future duties. Also, so far as I know, he is in receipt of his salary at present. However, I do not think that I want to say anything further on that because he is entitled to some rights, as are the farmers who are suffering today.
	I accept what the noble Countess has said about the particular difficulties caused by this situation for hill farmers currently involved in lambing.

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: My Lords, I understand that Reading is the best performing office. How many offices are there in total; which are the three worst performing; and if Reading was performing at 100 per cent, which in percentage terms is the worst performing office?

Lord Bach: My Lords, Reading is the best office in terms of mapping. No one would argue that any office was particularly better than another overall, and I certainly do not have any information to that effect. But the mapping issues have worried noble Lords for a long time. One of the first steps taken by the new chief executive has been to remove mapping from the other offices where it has taken place and to concentrate it in Reading. I cannot answer the noble Lord's other questions.

Lord Northbrook: My Lords, in the Statement the Minister said that the RPA faced substantial problems in getting SPS payments out to farmers. We have not heard many details of what the problems were and how we can avoid them happening again. I declare an interest as a landowner. The noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, suggested that interest be paid on late single farm payments. Is that a possibility?

Lord Bach: My Lords, I have answered the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, on compensation. I am afraid that it is not an answer that the noble Lord will want to hear: we are still waiting to hear what has stopped it being possible for the bulk of payments to be made by the end of March. It clearly has something to do with the validation of claims. It certainly had something to do with authorisation of claims. As I have already said, the new chief executive has acted on that. It is clear that Ministers should have been told earlier that the RPA was not likely to meet its target of making the bulk of payments by the end of March.

Lord Palmer: My Lords, I am delighted to hear that Reading is such a fine centre of excellence because I was born there and my title is of Reading. I am a little disappointed that the Minister has not yet answered my noble friend Lady Mar's question about the computer crash. Will he take up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Carter, about an interim payment? In Scotland I have already had 81.9 per cent—a magical percentage—of my single farm payment, but an interim payment would ease the burden of hardship on an enormous number of farmers. Even 50 per cent would be something. One must not forget that, particularly with the very wet spring that we have had, most farmers are at least a month behind in their cultivations, which means that harvest will be a month late and payments for arable farmers' harvests will be in turn a further month behind.

Lord Bach: My Lords, I repeat that part payments have not been ruled out altogether; we are awaiting further advice from the chief executive. As I pointed out, part payments involve problems of their own: they affect IT systems and the ability to make 2006 payments.
	On IT failure, we believe that the real issue is leadership of a complex organisation, not IT issues. All the main IT systems for the single payment scheme are in place and have produced the entitlement statements and first payments as planned. However, we know also that it has not been possible to ramp up the validation and distribution of payments as planned. The key objective of the new chief executive is to identify the problems and to develop and drive forward plans to overcome them.

Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, I apologise to the Minister, because I was not here for the Statement, but I have read it. I am afraid that I let my attention wander from the annunciator in my office. Mentioning the word "Defra" or anyone employed by Defra to any of my agricultural friends—I declare an interest as a farmer—raises a combination of amusement, despair and horror. Were not large sums of money involved, the gates in Essex would be shut, if Defra representatives came to farms nowadays. The situation is that bad, and it is a matter of great regret that it should be so.
	I plead with the Minister to consider seriously the issue of advance payments. Payments on account, which is what any other commercial organisation would have in these circumstances, would go a long way to relieve the problem. While I understand the difficulties in doing so, the Minister's attitude that it cannot be done will only increase farmers' derision about Defra at present. It is a matter of immense sorrow. However, does the Minister accept that responsibility for this difficulty really lies not with the agency—the idea for which might have originated under a Conservative government—but with the people who took the decision to put the system in place and required the agency to implement it?

Lord Bach: My Lords, the noble Lord must have misheard me. I did not say that part payments could not be made; it is clear that they could be, but we have to make sure that they will be successful in IT terms and that they will not affect adversely the 2006 payments. The people to whom he may speak about Defra will of course tell him what he has told the House. The people I speak to think that the improvement in the department of the environment, which includes farming, is a huge improvement on the former Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.

Democratic Republic of Congo

The Lord Bishop of Winchester: rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what assistance they propose to offer to the Democratic Republic of Congo to facilitate the promotion of democracy, human rights and the rule of law.
	My Lords, in asking the Government what assistance they propose to offer to the Democratic Republic of Congo to facilitate the promotion of democracy, human rights and the rule of law I intend to focus on the situation in that huge and suffering country in these next weeks and particularly after the elections that should take place before the end of June this year.
	I cannot rehearse to your Lordships the terrible experience of the peoples of what is now the DRC, subjected successively to the kleptocracy of King Leopold, to life as a Belgian colony, to 30 years of the vicious, west-supported dictatorship of Mobutu, and then to the appalling history of the past 10 years or so in which well over 3 million people have been killed or have died of disease or as refugees, and millions more have been—to use a euphemism—displaced. Nor can I paint more than a sweepingly general picture of the DRC's situation today.
	There is hardly a hint of a footprint of government, national or regional, in terms of services to the people across that vast country—larger than western Europe—anywhere after three years of the Transitional National Government; and this notwithstanding the constant advisory engagement with them of the committee of the ambassadors, the UK's prominent among them, of those states most engaged with aid and technical assistance.
	The DRC has the largest currently deployed UN Force, MONUC, with some 17,000 personnel. MONUC's mandate is to disarm, demobilise, resettle or repatriate the bewildering number of armed groups, to integrate some of them into a new national army and to train it, and to assist this force to defend local people and to combat those who refuse to come out of the forests. But in many parts of the vast country militias continue to fight each other, the national army—which is as yet far from a reliable or disciplined force—or MONUC; whether for minerals, or for territory, or as proxies for neighbouring states that arm them, to settle tribal scores, or simply to survive.
	Many hundreds of thousands of people have been freshly displaced this year both in the south and all up the east side of the country. That implies constant further attrition of the sparse and fragile provision, largely by the churches, of schools and health clinics. I doubt whether more people are killed each day in Iraq than in the DRC. The first appearance before the International Criminal Court in The Hague at the end of last week of a Congolese indicted for war crimes is a most important step; but there are many others much more prominent, and with as much if not more blood on their hands, than Thomas Lubanga; and it is vital that MONUC and Congolese forces work at bringing them too to justice.
	Elections of a president and of a legislature, which will bring into effect a new constitution, should take place by the end of June: an immensely complex task for the Independent Electoral Commission which is very substantially supported by the EU. But on the closing date last week for the registration of candidates, two of the four chief protagonists were not among the four who had registered as candidates for the presidency; and there were many fewer candidates registered for election to the legislature than there are seats in it. The latter may be down to difficulties with communications and travel—both, as I know at first hand, are extremely difficult—but the former, much more seriously, shows that some individuals and parties are still jockeying for position and are dangerously suspicious of the electoral process and of each other. The commission has extended the registration period until 2 April.
	It is most welcome that in these circumstances the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, spent three days last week in the DRC. According to reports he saw everyone he could usefully see, both privately and publicly, and in Kisangani as well as in Kinshasa; he said clearly and toughly to the politicians that the elections had to take place and that they owed it to the people to ensure that they did and to abide by the results; and he committed himself to the continued presence of MONUC after the elections because it still has so much to do.
	I also welcome the Council of the EU's decision on Thursday to deploy a German-led EU force to support MONUC through the period of the elections. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us that there will be some British participation in that deployment and that our ambassador in Kinshasa, with whom I had a stimulating meeting there last summer, is doing all he can to follow up and to reinforce the persuasive activity of the Secretary-General.
	Looking ahead to the period after the elections and supposing for a moment that they yield a clear result and one that is largely accepted, I hope that the Minister will reassure the House about the intentions of the UK, with its EU and Security Council colleagues. How are we planning to support and encourage the new Government in approaching the unimaginably large agenda that will face it? The scale of the issues it will face is simply unimaginable.
	Specifically and briefly, will we recognise, and hold partners to recognise, that this is the beginning of a long haul and that there must be no disengagement from support for the DRC and collaboration, to the greatest possible extent, with its government? Will we try to continue the mission of the committee of ambassadors under another guise? Will we—this is a critical point—encourage the new president, whoever he is, to be as inclusive as possible of the losers in the election in his government? Will we support at the UN the continuation of MONUC and the further development of its mandate and play our part in the still necessary struggle to control the inflow of arms into the DRC? Will we encourage international and DRC support for the further development into the DRC of the International Criminal Court process, with an eye especially on General Laurent Nkunda among those still to be hunted down and brought to justice?
	Will we put much more effort and resources, with UN and EU partners, into assisting the DRC to gain control for its people's sake of its vast mineral resources and to police what is still at present their largely criminal exploitation? Will we take appropriate action both against neighbouring states and their nationals and against first-world companies and individuals, Britons among them? Will we try to ensure that the peoples of the DRC, longing for security and peace after 130 years or so of horror, see some real "democracy dividend" from these elections—and soon?
	Lastly—and I do not expect more from the Minister in response to this question than an assurance, but let it be copper-bottomed, that the Government and their partners have contingency plans in place: what if the DRC, in these next months, should after all fall back—as it only too possibly may—into large-scale regional conflict and devastation, which could have—no, would have—very serious effects indeed more widely across the region?
	I look forward very much to other speeches and to the Minister's response.

Lord Giddens: My Lords, I congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester on initiating this debate. He does not have many takers for this debate, which I think is a bit disturbing.
	The Cold War was not very aptly named. A Cold War it might have been for us in the developed countries, but it was a hot war for much of the rest of the world. The main powers fought out their war by proxy, as it were, in countries ranging from Afghanistan to Central and South America, the Middle East and Africa, and Africa, of course, suffered especially. Once the Cold War was over, the erstwhile superpowers disengaged from the areas that they had fought over, where they had often supplied rival sides in civil wars. Zaire, as it then was, is a clear case in point where the US lost interest after having supported Mabuto against Soviet-backed Angola.
	The five years war, which has been called Africa's world war, came out of this, involving troops from a diversity of countries. No one knows how many people died in that war but the estimates range from 2.5 million minimum to over 4 million maximum. We know that there was massive loss of life in northern and eastern Congo especially, which went almost unnoticed by the rest of the world at the time. It is said to be the equivalent of an Asian tsunami every six months. We know that more than 1,000 people—maybe many more than 1,000 people—are dying every day. Hilary Benn, when he went there, called this the forgotten crisis. I am not sure that you can call it the forgotten crisis any longer when so many people have now said that it is the forgotten crisis and we have a large number of United Nations troops there.
	Steve Crawshaw, the London director of Human Rights Watch, visited the small town of Nyakunde in north-eastern Congo and produced a moving account of what happened during the war. He states:
	"C'était beau ici", says a Congolese, on entering the little town of Nyakunde. It is easy to see how the town might indeed once have been beautiful. The town nestles amidst soft green hills. Banana trees and oil palms, acacia and eucalyptus grow in profusion".
	But this is a place of ghosts. The document continues:
	"The events of Nyakunde were horrific even by the standards of the Congolese war. The killing spree began on 5 September 2002. From the hills above the town, militias descended on Nyakunde. The attack lasted for 10 days, including a door-to-door operation which the militias called Operation Polio—mass murder as social vaccination. The hospital was a particular target for looting, burning and slaughter . . . At least 1,200 people were murdered during those days. Most in Nyakunde believe the numbers of dead to be closer to 3,000 . . . With insane courage, somebody in the hospital sent an e-mail, even as the killings were still under way. The e-mail was headed 'Nyakunde—on fire and in blood'. Church groups forwarded the message to the United Nations mission in Congo. The UN did not respond".
	Other observers have noted that nearly one in two militiamen fighting in Ituri Province was under 18. Ironically, the hospital, which was previously one of the best developed hospitals in the country, is now home to some 300 former child soldiers, of which a contemporary description goes,
	"dressed in anything from rags to camouflage t-shirts and fake Versace gear".
	To this very disturbing scenario we can add the fact, reported just this month, that over 200 chickens and ducks in the country are suspected of dying of avian flu. Some 100 chickens died in a single day in Tshikapa, a south-central province and there seem to be migratory birds among the dead. As someone who has spoken in this Chamber about the dangers of avian flu, I find this a very worrying situation.
	Africa is fighting back against its misfortunes. It used to be said that you could not have democracy in poorer countries, especially countries recovering from civil war or strife, but the recent history of Africa shows that that is not so. There are a number of emerging democracies in Africa, some in very poor countries and some in countries that have been the sites of civil war. As the right reverend Prelate said, there are at least two very good signs in the DRC. First, a coalition is setting up elections, even though those elections seem to be continually being put back a little. Some 7,000 UN troops are there to help and, as the right reverend Prelate said, a force of EU troops is due to be introduced. Indeed, some are already there. Kofi Annan, during his visit, said that there are major logistical problems, if not nightmares, in carrying out the elections. There is no road or railway running across the country. One can see the force of the Secretary-General's observation. The second important development, which was already mentioned, is the decision of the ICC to announce the first arrest warrant against Thomas Lubanga. He was the leader of an armed group charged with war crimes and the recruitment of child soldiers. He seems to have been operating near the town of Nyakunde.
	The Government are to be congratulated on their response to the continuing crisis in the country. They have given £60 million for reconstruction. The UN is calling on donors to provide some £400 million for the action plan for the DRC. The UK is the second largest bilateral donor to the country and the largest donor to the election preparations, and with the visits of Ministers and others to the country, we have taken a direct interest in its likely fate.
	There are a few questions that I would like the Minister to consider; no doubt they will overlap with other questions asked by other contributors to the debate. First, will he update us on avian flu in that country? We know that the more common avian flu becomes, the more dangerous it is not only to the country where it develops but to the rest of the world. The biggest danger with avian flu is that it is no longer passed not just from birds to humans but that the virus mutates so that it can be passed from human to human, and the more common it is in passing from birds to humans the more likely it is that a pandemic could emerge.
	What are the Minister's comments on the possibility that the elections can be free and fair in such a situation, given the obstacles that have been mentioned? Thirdly, will the Government give further support to the ICC for more action in the country, as the right reverend Prelate said? It is only a beginning in chasing down the war criminals. Finally, what plans are there for economic regeneration? The Government have made some contributions; economic regeneration is possible. War-torn countries can recover, but the country is suffering from the curse of plenty. It is one of the richest countries in Africa in terms of minerals, but as we know from so many other countries around the world, that is not necessarily a basis for easy economic development. One of the problems of the DRC is that those resources are now to a large degree in the hands of warlords or criminal groups. It will be important to turn that situation around.

Lord Alton of Liverpool: My Lords, the House is greatly indebted to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester for providing us with this rare and welcome opportunity to debate the catastrophic situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I wholeheartedly endorse the remarks that he made earlier.
	Imagine for a moment that we woke up tomorrow and read a newspaper headline that told us that the whole of the population of the Republic of Ireland had been wiped out. Presumably, we would be shocked into disbelief. In the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the equivalent is exactly what has happened—4 million people have died over just 10 years. That is the biggest loss of life in any single conflict since the Second World War. Together with the loss of life in Sudan, Darfur, Rwanda and Uganda, it totals a staggering 7 million lives lost. This is Africa's Great War, and until it ends it is impossible to see how development or human progress can be properly sustained.
	Over a recent, brief, comparable period, twice as many people died in the Congo than in conflicts in the Middle East, yet lives in the Congo hardly rate a column inch, let alone a television report. That begs the question—why do we seem to attach so little relative importance to a life lost in the Congo compared with the loss of a life elsewhere in the world?
	For all the proper political interest in Africa during 2005, little was done to stabilise the Congo. When the Prime Minister appeared before a parliamentary committee a few weeks ago, it was significant that in two and a half hours of exchanges Africa was not mentioned once. Notwithstanding what the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, said about our welcome contribution to reconstruction in the Congo, it is depressing how quickly political issues move on—although the Minister has shown consistent and real commitment to the continent.
	Just over a year ago, under the auspices of the charity Jubilee Action, along with Canon Anthony Harvey, Sam Burke and Raphael Mpanzu, I travelled to the DRC and compiled a report on the devastating consequences of the continuing violence there—the report is published on the Jubilee Action website. On return, a small charity to help Congo's street children, the Jedidiah project, was set up under Jubilee's auspices. The right reverend Prelate, the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, and I are among its patrons. One of the first initiatives was to help St. Martha's School in London to send a container of equipment to Kinshasa. That is a good example of how young people get on with making a difference when we who have so much political influence often seem so impotent. Perhaps they understand better than we do that, where there is constant attrition, other children are the greatest losers.
	I attended a recent meeting of the All-Party Group on Street Children, where it was said that 40,000 children are now living on the streets of the country's capital, Kinshasa, with 6,000 more in Lubumbashi, 7,000 in Kananga, 7,000 in Bukavu and 2,000 in Goma. This crisis has been brought about by the continuing conflict in the east and north-east of the country, by the spread of AIDS, by poverty and by a negative view of orphaned children. The crisis has even spilled over into the inner cities and suburbs of Britain, with evidence emerging, thanks mainly to the BBC, of children being trafficked into Britain and some being branded as "witch children" and used in sordid rituals, including dismemberment. The torso of one child believed to have been killed in some such ritual was retrieved from the River Thames; the child is believed to have originated in the Congo.
	Inside the DRC, children have become cannon fodder for the rival armed insurgents. As many as 300,000 children have been recruited into the competing militias, and the demobilisation process and subsequent reintegration into society have proved to be a painstakingly slow business. UNICEF told me that in broad terms about 30,000 children are still under arms and comprise about 10 per cent of the armed groups. Despite the demobilisation programme, it said,
	"both recruitment and re-recruitment is continuing".
	Children as young as seven carry arms. I cannot adequately emphasise the importance of ending the traffic in small arms from neighbouring states, which is in breach of UN Security Council Resolution 1493.
	Amnesty International reported in December 2003 that,
	"all armed forces in the DRC",
	had used children as soldiers. In the east of the country, children have comprised as much as 40 per cent of the militias. Some were sent into combat, and some were used as sex slaves. In the light of the graphic comments, I make it clear that this is a direct quotation from Amnesty's report:
	"Some were forced to kill their own families; others were made to engage in cannibalistic or sexual acts with enemy corpses. Girl soldiers were raped and some died as a result".
	Sexual violence has often been accompanied by subsequent HIV/AIDS. In January 2004, Human Rights Watch confirmed those reports. The noble Lord, Lord Giddens, has already referred to that. I quote from the report:
	"All groups have recruited children, some as young as seven years old, for military service, subjecting the children to the risks and trauma of military operations".
	UNICEF told me that, as well as being used as combatants, children have routinely been used to clean and carry guns and to collect and prepare food and camps for combatants.
	Organisations such as War Child, Jubilee Action and the Princess Diana Memorial Fund have all identified this as the world's worst humanitarian disaster and have committed themselves to highlighting the plight of Congo's children and to offering some practical small-scale help. They need our full support. When War Child gave evidence to the all-party group, it told the story of a boy called Jacques whose mother and father were used as human shields and burnt alive. He is now on the streets in Bunia. It also told the story of Jean, aged 12, who fled Bosinga after bombardment by rebel militia. Her mother and father were both killed and she fled to Gbadolife, over 100 miles away, where she is now living on the streets.
	So what can we do? Governments such as our own can insist that the declarations in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child are put into effect. Likewise, the International Crisis Group's Congo action plan needs urgent implementation. We should be working with other players in the international community to exert real pressure.
	Undoubtedly, Congo graphically illustrates what happens when a state fails and is disfigured by corruption and conflict. This is not some small sideshow. The DRC is the third largest county in Africa and the fourth most populous. Per capita income is just $107. Paradoxically, a country that is rich in minerals and natural wealth, and which should be able to sustain itself and its people, has suffered grievously as a consequence of its own natural riches—which everyone, from colonial rulers to voracious neighbours and corrupt rulers, has sought to acquire for themselves. As a result, Congo has been benighted by exploitative rule and by callous and corrupt leadership.
	During my visit, I heard many allegations that, to this day, with the complicity of western governments, European quartermasters continue to fuel the conflict through the sale of weapons. The country's Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs, Professor Mbwinga Bila, told me that, as a consequence of the long corrupt and rapacious rule of President Mobutu and the almost incessant armed violence since decolonisation,
	"the decaying infrastructure we have today is the one we inherited at the moment of independence. In fact, we have even less now than we had then. The only change is that in 1960 the infrastructure supported a population of 14 million and today the population is closer to 60 million. We have had 35 years of bad government followed by 10 years of armed conflict".
	I visited a hospital and a school in Kinshasa. In the hospital, I saw a premature baby unit, where there were nine incubators—only two of them worked. I learnt subsequently that the children in the non-functioning incubators died. I also visited a school, Mbenseke Futi, situated about 50 kilometres from the centre of Kinshasa. There are about 300 children in the school, including 50 street children. The headmaster showed me decaying buildings, including a wing that had been storm damaged in 1991. Food was being prepared over open fires. Teachers had not been paid in months. There was nothing to treat the malaria that affected all of the children. The sleeping conditions—wooden slats on bunks in filthy dormitories—were an absolute disgrace. When I asked him about this, Minister Bila said:
	"In our schools, books don't exist, parents have to pay and the buildings are in ruins".
	He was quite emphatic. He said that,
	"the real problem is the war. It has destroyed the infrastructure".
	Surely that must be our starting point in tackling the conflict in that country. When the Minister comes to reply, I hope that he will be able to tell us what action is being taken to bring about the end of this conflict and what more we can do to accelerate the demobilisation, reintegration, protection and education of the children—especially those under arms, the street children and the so-called "witch children". I hope that he will say what leverage we are exerting on Rwanda to end all military involvement in Congo, and to actively collaborate with the DRC, starting with the exchange of ambassadors. I raised that issue directly with the Rwandan President Paul Kagame when I subsequently visited Kigali; it is a small thing, but it would be an important step forward, as would working with the DRC and with MONUC—as the right reverend Prelate mentioned earlier—in disarming the militias. I hope that the Minister will say what we are doing, along with other western governments, to hunt down and prosecute the arms dealers I mentioned, and those benefiting from involvement in Congo's conflicts. What measures are we taking to help to build up agencies involved in conflict resolution, reconciliation, human rights advocacy, and the training of judges, magistrates and police officers?
	I could have returned from my visit to the DRC deeply depressed, but these are not insuperable or insurmountable challenges. By helping to heal this wound at the very heart of Africa, and by driving out corruption and conflict, we will be creating a climate in which real development can occur. If, however, as our first priority, we do not solve those issues, everything else that we try to achieve—including elections—will be in vain.

Lord Avebury: My Lords, the right reverend Prelate has drawn our attention to the desperately bleak history of the DRC. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, has just spoken about the horrible present. We might feel depressed as we consider what the United Kingdom can do, if it were not for the fact that, as the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, has told us, this is not a forgotten country.
	Things are happening there. In particular, working towards the elections on June 18 is the biggest and most costly exercise of this kind ever undertaken by the United Nations. If they contribute towards a peaceful and orderly environment, allowing the 460,000 refugees in neighbouring countries to return and the 1.3 million people displaced internally to be rehabilitated, it will be a rewarding investment for the international community. We welcome the decision by the European Union to comply with the request of the Secretary-General to provide additional troops for the election itself and the immediate post-election period—though we do wonder whether such a small number of troops for such a short time can be more than just a token of moral support. Apparently, there will be only 400 to 450 EU troops in the DRC, with a further 800 to 1,000 on standby somewhere else. Is the UK providing any of these troops and, if so, how many and in what capacities?
	The European Council statement of 23 March says the 450 troops will be deployed in Kinshasa, with the other 1,000 somewhere "over the horizon", outside the country. But any attempts to disrupt the elections, which the commander of the local UN force has said he will deal with proactively, are likely to be at the other end of the country, in the east. So what will the European Union troops be doing in Kinshasa? Who is going to pay for them? The Council statement seems to imply that it is the EU rather than the states contributing to the force, which is fair; but the Minister said in the week before last that we are making a £40 million contribution to MONUC. Presumably the EU contingent is not covered by MONUC's budget. Perhaps the Minister could enlighten us on that point.
	The European Council says that it will,
	"provide . . . support to MONUC",
	but surely this needs to be properly defined and amplified. The Minister's gloss was that the EU troops,
	"should be only for purposes that add value to the existing MONUC force on the ground".—[Official Report, 16/3/06; col. 1344.]
	However, he then added that discussions were going on about what they might do, implying that no firm decisions had yet been made. Will the EU contingent come under the command of General Cammaert—in which case, they can presumably be asked to do anything that comes within the mandate of MONUC? If not, do all requests for support on particular tasks or operations have to be routed via Brussels? Will the support include military action against armed factions such as the Mai Mai in Katanga; the FLDR, who are mostly former Interahamwe genocidaires from Rwanda, numbering 8,000 to 10,000 in North Kivu; and the LRA, now reported to be concentrating in Garamba National Park, where the leader Kony and his deputy Otti have now joined up?
	Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Mr Guehenno, said that MONUC had asked the Security Council for a complete brigade in northern Katanga, where the UN had so far had no presence. The Secretary-General also said that he made a request for an unspecified increase in the MONUC force but was refused by the Security Council. Did it make that decision on the grounds that troops were not needed in the province, or because it formed the view that no suitable member state or states would be willing to provide the extra troops? Did it ask the EU whether the 1,500 troops it is going to supply could be used in northern Katanga? It is now intended to redeploy a battalion from north Kivu, which means less protection for civilians in a province where the FLDR and, even more so, the Congolese army itself—the FARDC—are accused of dozens of atrocities every month. But the consequences of neglecting Katanga are even more serious.
	I understand that in the past six months 150,000 people have fled their homes, caught in between the Mai Mai and the undisciplined army. Earlier this month MONUC asked for the withdrawal of the 63rd Brigade, stationed in Mitwaba, which has been guilty of serious crimes against civilians. I hope that the noble Lord can assure me that those troops have now been replaced by MONUC forces.
	From all the reports made by the UN, the FARDC is responsible for infinitely more atrocities than any of the non-state armed groups, and surely it ought to be drastically reduced in size, dismissing soldiers who commit any acts of violence against civilians, and making sure that the core who remain are properly trained, equipped and paid. The International Crisis Group says that reform of the army is far behind schedule, and it criticises the policy of demobilising militias and giving handouts to ex-combatants. Of the $2 billion spent on the DRC by the international community so far, only a small fraction has been used to improve the status and management of the armed forces and the police. We know something about this from our experience in Sierra Leone. If the UN adopts the cluster response principle being tested in Uganda, which we talked about a couple of weeks ago, could the United Kingdom perhaps volunteer to play the lead role in the security sector reform cluster in the DRC?
	In spite of all this, the security situation is better than it was a year ago, and the decision to postpone the elections turned out to be fully justified. There have been some hopeful signs—notably the decision at the end of last week by the biggest armed group, RCD-Goma, to end its boycott of the peace process, and for its leader, Azaria Ruberwa, to stand as a candidate for the presidency. As the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, reminded us, the first trial has begun at the ICC of a prominent war criminal, Thomas Lubanga, who is accused of forcing nine year-olds to fight for his Union des Patriotes Congolais in blood-drenched Ituri. Other militia leaders from the same area are awaiting trial on charges of killing nine Bangladeshi peacekeepers in February last year.
	MONUC has captured Bosco Atubo, one of the LRA's senior commanders, in Garamba, and I hope that this means it is on the trail of Kony and Otti. It would be a major achievement if MONUC and the FARDC brought these evil men to justice, ending their reign of terror over large areas of Uganda, the DRC and south Sudan, boosting confidence in the elections and helping to promote amicable co-operation between the three neighbouring countries.
	In both south and north Kivu, thanks to MONUC, it was claimed that voter registration was carried out in almost every polling district before the December 2005 referendum, at which 25 million people voted. But the register was not perfect, and Etienne Tshisekedi has asked for it to be reopened, because he now accepts that there was massive support for the new constitution. Although the head of the Electoral Commission said there was no time, surely a supplementary list could be produced over the next 10 weeks to include not only Tshisekedi's UDPS supporters, but also the districts not covered, and the voters left off the register last October. If nominations can be extended, as the right reverend Prelate explained, why not registrations, too?
	Will the refugees and internal exiles be able to vote, and if so, have they been registered? Secondly, was the registration equally successful in the north, particularly in the areas of Ituri and Bunia, and in Katanga province in the south? People are still crossing Lake Albert into western Uganda, though not in large numbers, and clashes were reported with rebel forces south of Bunia only last Wednesday. It would be good to have some reassurance about the stability of that area in the period leading up to the elections.
	But it is also time to begin thinking about the next stages. The Secretary-General has talked about the post-election challenges, which need the continuous assistance of the international community. The priorities that he mentions are the reform of the army and the police, and the establishment of state authority and the rule of law. To achieve these objectives we need to stay the course, recognising that it will take several years. But as the DRC starts to build effective and disciplined police and armed forces, MONUC will downsize, and its role will shift towards training.
	Correspondingly greater attention will need to be given to the question of how the vast mineral riches can be harnessed for the benefit of the people, and not for the foreign interests dealt with in the reports of the UN Panel on the Illegal Exploitation of Resources of the DRC. There is now a mining code, developed with the assistance of the World Bank, but it is not well enforced and has failed to attract large investors. Huge quantities of unprocessed minerals are smuggled across the borders into Zambia untaxed, losing state revenue. Foreign business interests and corrupt politicians have contributed to instability. Potentially, DRC is one of the richest countries in Africa. We must help the people not only to eliminate non-state armed groups and create a firm democratic foundation, but to establish control over their mineral resources so that they no longer need our help.

Baroness Morris of Bolton: My Lords, I, too, add my congratulations to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester on securing this debate. The issues covered are never far from the attention of your Lordships' House or hearts in our many debates on Africa. But it is important and timely to be concentrating tonight on the Democratic Republic of Congo. On behalf of my noble friend Lady Rawlings, I apologise for her absence from this debate today.
	In preparing for this speech—I have had to do a lot of preparation for tonight's debate because I knew very little about the DRC before I picked up this brief—I have undertaken some grim reading, as the right reverend Prelate outlined, of a tragic history and the aftermath of an almost forgotten emergency at the heart of Africa. As so many of your Lordships have pointed out, more than 4 million people have died in the past four years alone in what the International Rescue Committee has called,
	"the most deadly conflict in terms of its impact on civilian population since the Second World War".
	The noble Lord, Lord Alton, reminded us of that.
	More than 100,000 people have been displaced, and the Lancet estimated in January this year that 38,000 people die every month. The noble Lord, Lord Giddens, described that graphically when he quoted Kofi Annan, saying,
	"if you look at the figures and the extent of the suffering cumulatively . . . you probably have a Tsunami in this country every six months, in terms of the dead and dying".
	Perhaps the most shocking description came from the noble Lord, Lord Alton.
	Outright civil war officially ended three years ago and the long awaited transitional government have been in place since July 2003. They have brought a degree of stability to the DRC and have so far remained intact, despite reports of growing political tensions. However, factional conflicts continue, particularly in the east of the country.
	As noble Lords have highlighted, the human rights situation remains shocking. Indeed, it is one of the worst in Africa, with atrocities against civilians being committed daily—none more so than in the Ituri district in the north-east of the DRC. Militia and foreign groups have taken part in rape, torture, cannibalism, forced labour, abduction of women and children and illegal detention. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office human rights report, among others, also highlights that there is evidence of internally displaced people being used as human shields. Meanwhile, poorly fed and unpaid Congolese soldiers often harass local populations, imposing illegal taxes, stealing and using sexual violence.
	I could not refer to the human rights situation without raising the plight of the women and children of this war-torn region. More than four in every 10 children in the DRC die before their first birthday, around half of all children do not attend primary school, and in conflict-affected areas may have been recruited or abducted into armed groups and forces.
	In the east many children have become separated from their families by the conflict. The figures for this one region alone were 2,797 children in 2003 without family unity, physical security and protection. The breakdown in social structures increases the opportunities and potential for gender-based violence. Sexual exploitation, such as rape, is committed as a systematic weapon of war to deliberately humiliate and break community cohesion. Adolescent girls are often the most vulnerable and are put under enormous pressure to support themselves, particularly in refugee camps.
	The short-term reality of the situation is bad enough, but the consequences of gender-based violence can be long term and devastating. There is a marked decline in health due, among other things, to an increase in sexually transmitted diseases, in particular HIV/AIDS, forced and unwanted pregnancies, which can lead to dangerous termination practices, and a high maternal and infant mortality rate because of a lack of infrastructure and healthcare. The babies born as a result of rape often face a serious risk of being abandoned, and daughters can be ostracised from their communities owing to the shame of rape or becoming pregnant outside wedlock, which only further increases their vulnerability.
	These problems are not restricted to the DRC alone; it is a cross-border issue that also involves Rwandan children and Sudanese and Ugandan refugees. As the noble Lord, Lord Alton, highlighted, children, predominantly based in urban areas of the DRC, are also experiencing the horrifying phenomenon of being accused of witchcraft. Many are institutionalised in childcare homes or revivalist churches, which, Save the Children reports, often leaves them open to abuse.
	I am sure the Minister shares my concerns regarding the plight of women and children in this region; I hope he will be able to tell us how the Government are helping to raise awareness of these issues at local and national level in the DRC. Promoting education and preparing children and families, who have witnessed and experienced so much, for reunification will be a vital and difficult task. Central to this task will be the charities and NGOs working tirelessly within the DRC.
	One of the more pleasant findings in my weekend research was the work of the Cambridge-based charity SOS Children. Fifteen years ago it opened the gates of a children's village, a school and a kindergarten in the troubled eastern province of South-Kivu, and in 1997, it established an emergency village in Uvira to house war orphans and abandoned children. Its work is truly unique when compared to other NGOs. It pioneered the first family-based approach to childcare through the creation of children's villages and is now the world's largest orphan charity, with every penny that it raises for a specific project going directly to that project, with nothing deducted for administration purposes.
	Sometimes it is these small grass-roots projects that make all the difference. I hope the Minister will be able to reassure your Lordships' House that the Government will listen to organisations such as SOS Children and that mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, because their experience is worth everything.
	I have painted a bleak picture of life for just one section of society, but there is a dim light at the end of the tunnel. We on these Benches welcome the support that the UN, the EU and Her Majesty's Government are providing in terms of resources and advice. We must recognise the major logistical challenges of the election. Kofi Annan highlighted that the DRC is at a critical stage in its history. It is clear that there is still a very long way to go, but the success of the constitution referendum last year gives hope. If a stable enough environment can be maintained, then this could be a serious step to cementing the transition from bloody civil war to peace and democracy, and providing the people with much-needed accountability, justice and the chance to rebuild their lives. I echo the question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, on hoping for fairness in the forthcoming elections.
	The transitional government have been slow in key areas, particularly the integration of the army, police force, and promotion of the rule of law. As your Lordships have highlighted, it is imperative that security is brought to the entire population. Impunity has been a problem exacerbated by the decision of the Congolese authorities to promote militia leaders into senior army positions. Although the prosecution of Thomas Lubanga by the International Criminal Court for enlisting child soldiers, among other crimes, is a significant step forward, mobile tribunals are also starting to provide some basic work in some of the more rural areas. I hope the Minister can further update us on progress on this issue and on what steps the Government are taking to help to promote the mind shift that is needed as the rule of law is reintroduced to a land that has seen only the rule of the powerful and the armed for so long.
	It is clear that there is still much to be done in a country where stability and peace are fragile at best. We will watch carefully how the DRC copes with the challenges ahead, such as the need for efficient control of natural resources, good management of state enterprises, a fully national development policy that excludes no region and restoration of state authority over the entire country. But get that right and it will help to foster peace, stability and reconsolidation throughout the Great Lakes region and, I hope, beyond. Recent debates on the Sudan and Uganda have emphasised how much this is needed. I am sure the Minister will reiterate the importance of communicating with the DRC's neighbours in the run-up to the elections. This passionate debate has emphasised your Lordships' desire to see all the people of the DRC, particularly women and children, realise the future that has been denied them for so long.

Lord Triesman: My Lords, I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester for initiating an important debate. I also thank all noble Lords who have participated in the debate: the noble Lords, Lord Giddens, Lord Alton and Lord Avebury, and the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Bolton. I am particularly grateful for the understanding that your Lordships' House has shown of the complexity of the situation in the DRC, emphasised, a few moments ago, by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris. As the right reverend Prelate said at the beginning, this is a very long haul. We have discussed much detail this evening, but the broad issues are also important.
	This is a critical moment, not just for the Congolese, but for the future of Africa. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, asked whether we remain totally committed to Africa. I believe we are. He also wondered whether it is mentioned enough. I met with all the heads of our missions serving in Africa today to discuss this and other issues. We hope that the Congolese people, with help from the international community, will hold their first free and fair elections in June. I emphasise the point that each life in the DRC is as important as a life anywhere else and indeed each vote in the DRC in a democratic election is as important as a vote anywhere else. This could be the first genuinely accountable and democratic government. As the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, has just pointed out, tens of millions of people across the whole Great Lakes region would benefit. If they get it wrong, we could easily see a return to the horrific and tragic conflict of the past, which is still there in a somewhat subdued form—a conflict that has plagued this region for over a decade. So the stakes are very high. It is right to ask what we, the British Government, are doing to help to secure success.
	The breadth of discussion we have had this evening serves to underline the vast scale of the problem with which we are dealing. Let us see what those problems are. We are talking about a country of about 60 million people, the size of western Europe, without any real roads or infrastructure. The noble Lord, Lord Giddens, described it and some of the horrors that have taken place in parts of it. As the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, said, more than 4 million people have died as a direct result of the recent war in the DRC. Who knows, the numbers may be very much larger. That is 1,200 people every day dying from disease, malnutrition and through violence, over and above normal mortality rates. Over 80 per cent of the population live in abject poverty. The numbers of internally displaced people—I do not much like the expression either—are the highest anywhere in the world after Darfur and northern Uganda. Latest UN figures suggest that there are 150,000 displaced people in the north of Katanga Province alone and 1.5 million in the DRC overall. The war of course compounded the DRC's problems. It brought insecurity and instability across the country and it shattered the already collapsing infrastructure.
	These raw figures show just how important it is that we get the DRC right, to relieve the long-suffering Congolese population. A stable, secure and prosperous DRC will also lay the foundations for peace and economic development in the Great Lakes region. If we want Africa to do better and to thrive then the DRC has to survive and thrive.
	So, what are we doing? The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester and others asked that question. The United Kingdom is playing an increasingly influential role in the DRC. We are now the biggest bilateral European donor. This financial year we allocated £55 million for programmes to consolidate the peace and support the elections. From our bilateral support, we have earmarked £65 million for emergency humanitarian relief over the next two years. We are an important member of the CIAT—the international mechanism based in Kinshasa which has supported the transitional process. Through the UN Security Council, we have secured what we believe is the right mandate for the UN forces on the ground. We are strong advocates at the Security Council. I was there last Monday and we were emphasising that MONUC's efforts to protect civilians and support elections is absolutely imperative. The European Commission is also making several hundred million euros available each year: €149 million for the election process alone, constituting over half the total cost. Much more of the money is now going to EU police missions in Kinshasa: €1.6 million to the EU advisory and assistance mission for security reform; €205 million on priority areas in the fight against poverty, the cause of healthcare, capacity building throughout the transition to democracy and macroeconomic support; and €105 million on external debt alleviation. We believe that these steps, including the mandate for the MONUC forces to protect the investments, are vital to allow it to respond robustly and flexibly, including in its requirement to protect civilians.
	As in other parts of the world, in the DRC the UK is a strong voice. We are calling for democratic and accountable government, with respect for human rights and the rule of law. The Congolese Government and non-governmental organisations listen to us. The Congolese population respects us and have paid generous tribute for the work that has been done. But, for all that, the challenge, as we have all said this evening, is immense.
	There are no democratic traditions in the Congo. The last real elections were in the 1960s, and they were not as real as any of us would expect here. Few people voted in those elections, and still fewer of them are alive today. But it is clear too that the Congolese people have a real desire to have their democratic voices heard. Amazingly, as we have heard this evening, 25 million people registered to vote in this huge country without roads, railways or any other tangible infrastructural links. We now need to ensure that those 25 million voters get to vote and have faith in the process that they are participating in and in the result that the process will deliver.
	We have been working with civil society and through NGOs on the ground to encourage the Congolese to take greater ownership of the election process. My noble friend Lord Giddens and the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, have urged that on me this evening. I wholly support their view. We must ensure that these are fair elections, and our endeavours must go into ensuring that. We must encourage the people of the Congo to demand that the outcome is representative and credible—it is not us on their behalf; it is theirs, and they must demand it for themselves.
	In our contacts with the politicians who are taking part in the elections, we have also stressed that the new government will need to be inclusive and representative—another vital point made this evening. The government need to be accountable to the people who elected them; only then will they be truly legitimate in the eyes of the Congolese people and the international community.
	On top of delivering messages, we have put £10 million into the UN trust fund to support the process and £9 million into security directly around the elections, making us the largest bilateral donor to the election process.
	As recent news reports have made plain, political tensions remain very high—they are possibly getting higher—in the Congo. We have been playing—I have had the opportunity myself to play—an active part in mediating between the different political groupings to overcome the current political blockages, where some people are feeling somewhat excluded from the process. The next major challenge will be the elections themselves, helping the Congolese to stick to their agreed timetable and to deliver a result which is credible and credible to the population as a whole. Part of what we need to do, as my noble friend Lord Giddens said, is to ensure that as they look forward they see real hope of economic regeneration, making it all worthwhile.
	There have been significant changes since the war ended. There are commercial flights linking east to west and the national phone network is back in place—I do not know whether it runs all the time, but I believe it is pretty good now compared with what it has been. We have seen an increase in international and multinational investment; roads which had previously been blocked or were insecure for other reasons, are open, and the River Congo has been opened up to commercial traffic. The United Kingdom's focus on economic regeneration lies in these areas so that the DRC can pull itself out from the collapse and the devastation it has experienced.
	The international community is focusing on rebuilding the DRC's roads, ports, and customs structures and on regenerating the old parastatal natural resource and mining companies. Private investment as well as donor assistance is needed to bring off all these changes. The International Monetary Fund in its most recent report shows how some of this work is now having an effect on poverty reduction. The growth facility, which has been uneven since mid-2004, is showing some signs of improvement. But there is obviously a great deal to be done. One thing that must be done is to overcome corruption in some of the things that have been got going again, in order to ensure that they deliver properly.
	Those will be among the biggest challenges the day after the election, but so will the "winner takes all" mentality, because it will not offer the inclusive and representative government that will make for long-term stability, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester said. All key actors, whether they have won or lost in the elections, need to have a stake in the peace that will follow if we are successful, and in the new government. We have made these views clear to the key Congolese politicians and groups.
	Our aim in a democratically elected and accountable government will be to change the dire human rights situation in DRC, which, as the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, said, we also outlined in the FCO's annual report. But as we have heard in the House today, the situation remains one of the worst anywhere in the world. Foreign and Congolese militia groups and even the DRC's own forces are responsible for many of the abuses that take place. We have heard of the terrible incidents of rape, killing and pillage of entire villages, particularly in the east of the country. The plight of Congolese children accused of witchcraft must be of particular concern to us all, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said. I shall refer to the work that we are doing with the police and judiciary in that regard.
	As elections come closer, we are seeing a rise in rhetoric inciting ethnic hatred, which inhibits free expression in the election. We are trying to help to combat this. We are working on a programme to encourage journalists to retain independence and to report accurately during the election campaign. Those issues are reflected in all our dealings with the authorities in the DRC.
	The third pillar of our action, raised by the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, and the right reverend Prelate, has been action to bring to justice those carrying out abuses. It is always difficult to strike the right balance between peace and stability on one side and justice on the other. Last week, we saw a major step forward with the transfer of Thomas Lubanga to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. We shall continue to pursue war criminals, as we intend that MONUC will do so. The UK has been a strong supporter of the ICC, and it is our obligation. Thomas Lubanga's arrest and surrender sends a strong signal throughout the region that those who carry out human rights abuses will one day face justice. The ICC has far more to do. We shall assist it in doing so.
	In parallel to ICC action, we also need to help the Congolese strengthen their own justice system across the board. There is fundamental work involving prisons, police, the judiciary and a neutral supreme court. Good progress is being made on reforming and retraining the police, which the UK has supported. We have an EU police training and mentoring mission (EUPol), which the Congolese have welcomed. The UK is involved in a programme to train judges to run mobile courts in some of the provinces across the DRC. It means that many more in local communities will have access to justice that is consistent with proper, national standards. That has begun to replace the arbitrary justice meted out throughout the war. But there is still a long way to go. With our help, we believe that we can make the changes. I do not know whether we can change minds. Mind-shift is always difficult. But the practicalities may be the basis for changing people's minds.
	MONUC has been described to your Lordships. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, asked about MONUC forces. No decisions have yet been reached within the EU on the precise number or deployment, although discussions continue on those fronts. The internal discussion so far, and consultations with the Congolese and UN, suggest that the force will comprise a pre-deployment of 400 troops in Kinshasa with the remainder, as the noble Lord said, over the horizon on standby. The aim at this stage is to retain as much flexibility as possible. Kinshasa can be a very combustible town. If it is in a reasonably good state, the prospects of other people being deployed elsewhere become correspondingly higher. The EU forces will not come under the command of MONUC or its commander in the east.
	We shall continue to look at the cluster principle being deployed in Uganda. However, as I said in the case of Uganda, it is very early to know whether it is yet fully working. We are playing a leading role in security sector reform in the DRC. EUSEC, the EU's mission, is playing the co-ordinating role for international community support for security efforts. We have experts in this mission. We also have experts supporting the European and MONUC missions, although we do not have troops on the ground.
	The vote lists are now closed. The logistics are too difficult to get the systems at this stage up and running outside the DRC. We are satisfied with the registration process. We believe that, although it has been slower in one or two provinces because of technical problems, none the less the registration systems have worked fairly well.
	We take seriously the allegations of sexual exploitation by MONUC. In the UN a special committee on peacekeeping is looking at the issue. It is also true, as the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, said, that we must do a great deal of this work with the local and national organisations in the DRC. I, too, have looked at SOS Children. The word "unique" was used. It is a remarkable project and one which I highly commend to your Lordships.
	There have been a great many other questions. My noble friend Lord Giddens raised avian influenza. There have been several suspected cases of wild and domestic birds dying of avian influenza in the DRC. The samples from some birds have been sent to South Africa for testing. The Congolese Government have reported that the results were negative. Neither the WHO nor the Congolese Government have been able to confirm whether avian flu is in fact currently present, but we will keep the House fully informed.
	The noble Lord, Lord Alton, asked about Rwanda and relations with some other countries. We emphasise to those countries that there must be no external support for the Congolese armed groups that are disrupting the peace process. The DRC must take action to deal with armed groups. We will support the US-facilitated tripartite-plus commission, which is aiming to bring Ugandan, Rwandan, Burundian and Congolese Foreign Ministers together to ensure that there is no crossover of such forces and assistance. I cannot tell your Lordships that it will work perfectly, but we will work at it.
	As every contributor to the debate has said, we are talking of a country blighted by a history of murder, war, rape, rampant theft, poverty, hunger and disease but that is now making some progress towards a different state of affairs. It is a terrible history; the advances are slow; and there are many setbacks. It is not like any area in which we normally think of the conduct of normal democratic life. It is not Orpington, Winchester or Bolton. But we are working at it, because it is a matter of global concern.
	I know that every noble Lord will join me in expressing a sincere desire to see the future of the DRC and of the Congolese people a great deal brighter than it has been. They have suffered long enough. We must end the brutal and repressive regimes, civil war and corruption. The rape and violence must stop. Impunity must end. Security Council Resolution 1493 must be respected. As the noble Lord, Lord Alton, rightly demands, the population as a whole, rather than an elite few, must benefit from the huge wealth and natural resources.
	The bits of the jigsaw that we need are there. The framework for peace is potentially there. The democratic elections are just around the corner. We must keep that process on track day by day, as we are trying to do with the leaders of some of the contending factions, on the phone and in person, just trying to make sure that peace lasts long enough to ensure that the election is successful. Through the expertise and finance that we are providing, we hope that we can give the Congolese the tools to do the job.
	The situation is incredibly fragile. It would be foolish to pretend otherwise. We have a lot of work to do over the coming months and years, but I suspect that there may not be another chance for decades to come if we do not get it right this time. The international community and Congolese politicians owe it to the people of the country to seize the opportunity in this huge country for a future of peace, prosperity, democracy and justice. That is the aim of the Government; I believe that it is the aim of the whole House. We do not think that there is any difference between any of us about that. We cannot let it fall back.
	I have described a programme and the immediate funding. That is all aimed at that purpose: we must not let it fall back, nor rest until we have achieved the objectives that we have set out.

House adjourned at twenty-seven minutes past eight o'clock.
	Monday, 27 March 2006.